Born Martha Anne Butterworth in Newport News, Virginia on July 27, 1977, Martha Madison was raised in Houston, Texas. She has has two older sisters and two younger brothers. At a young age, she knew she wanted to perform. She started acting at the age of 6 at the Actors’ Theatre of Houston. She used to take acting classes every summer. She attended Texas A&M University where she majored in psychology and became captain of the dance team. Right after college she attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City.
In 2001, Martha Madison landed a small role in the film Kate and Leopold, which starred Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman. After spending less than two years in New York, she moved to Los Angeles. She immediately got a 4-day stint on NBC Daytime’s Passions as Lola, a !@#!@tail waitress, and on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She then went on to audition for the role of
Belle Black in NBC’s long-running soap Days of our Lives. She would later say that it had been a goal for her to star on Days of our Lives, as it was a favorite show of hers. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” she said. “I get to do what I love on the show that I love, every day. It doesn’t get better than that.”
Madison counts Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan and Drew Barrymore as her favorite actresses because they are charming and funny, she says. She enjoys hiking the local canyons and hanging by the pool with her friends. She watches American Idol and The Apprentice, and has two dogs, a Labrador and a Weimaraner. In the summer of 2007 she was married to restaurateur AJ Gilbert with her Days cast mates attending the ceremony at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California.