Philip Edward Hartmann was born on September 24th, 1948 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Although he was born in Canada, the family left when Phil was young and he spent the majority of his childhood in Connecticut and Southern California. He later obtained his American citizenship in the early 90s. He often would visit his homeland of Canada throughout his career, and the City of Brantford even erected a plaque on the Walk of Fame in the town in honor of Phil's career and memory. The Humber College Comedy: Writing & Performance program in Toronto, Ontario also has an award in Phil's memory that is given out to their Post-Graduate comedy students. He originally studied Graphic Design at California State University. He began to work part time as a graphic artist designing album covers for such bands as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and Poco. In 1975, alongside doing album work, Phil joined the California comedy troupe, The Groundlings. While in The Groundlings, Phil worked with `Paul Rubens' and Jon Lovitz, who became good friends of his until his death. Phil and Paul created the character Pee Wee Herman together and Phil even had a role on Pee Wee's Playhouse as pirate "Captin' Carl".

In 1986, Phil joined the cast of Saturday Night Live and was on the show for a record of 8 seasons (which was later broken by Tim Meadows). Phil played a wide range of characters including: Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton, Ronald Regan, 'Ed McMahon (I), Barbara Bush and many others. He was known to help out other writers who wanted to get their sketches read and onto the show. He held SNL together during his 8 year reign, thus the nickname he garnered while on the show, "The Glue".

Phil was also known for his voice work on commercials and cartoons. He was probably most well known for the voices of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz on the animated comedy, The Simpsons. He also provided other minor voices for The Simpsons.