Background
Brooks was born Martin Baum in The Bronx.
Brooks was born Martin Baum in The Bronx.
He attended Penn State University and enrolled at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research in New York City.
When he was 10, he moved with his family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After high school, he volunteered to serve in the United States. Army, became a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries received during World World War World War II In the fall of 1977, Brooks and Richard Anderson (as Oscar Goldman) became the first known actors to portray the same characters as regulars simultaneously on two different networks. National Broadcasting Company picked up The Bionic Woman after the series had been cancelled by American Broadcasting Company. American Broadcasting Company continued to air The Six Million Dollar Manitoba
Brooks had, by that time, been promoted to series regular on both series.
The unusual situation lasted only one season as the two series were cancelled by their respective networks in the spring of 1978. Brooks reprised the role of Wells in three television movies: The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Manitoba and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Manitoba and the Bionic Woman (1989) and Bionic Ever After? (1994).
His other television roles include Ted Burton in Knots Landing, Mike Snow in Hunter, Doctor Arthur Bradshaw in General Hospital, Deputy Doctorate.A. Chapman in McMillan & Wife, and Edgar Randolph in the soap opera Dallas, in a story arc involving J.R. Ewing. He also guest-starred in an episode of The Silent Force in 1970.