From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Strother Martin (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980) was an American actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate." Description above from the Wikipedia article Strother Martin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia​