Her career began as a singer in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Martel was in the cast of the Broadway play
Snatch as Snatch Can in May 1934. Other actors paired with her included
Barton MacLane. Her first film role was in
Front Page Woman (1935), followed by
Going Highbrow (1935). She was the female lead in
Fighting Youth (1935). The movie combined football excitement with the influence of
communism on college athletics. Martel was signed by
Harry Warner of
Warner Bros. in 1935. Other aspiring Warners' actresses were
Olivia de Havilland, June Grabiner,
Nan Grey, and
Dorothy Dare. By August 1936, she had become the property of
Paramount Pictures. The studio cast her as the ingenue in
American Plan. The story concerned a girl who inherits a newspaper, adapted from an unpublished play by Manny Seff and Milton Lazarus. She also appeared in
Sitting on the Moon in 1936. Martel's later screen roles came in the 1930s in
western films, such as
Forlorn River (1937),
Wild Horse Rodeo (1937) and
Santa Fe Stampede (1938). ==Personal life==