Ingels was born Martin Ingerman to a Jewish family in 1936 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the son of Jacob and Minnie (née Crown) Ingerman. His uncle was Abraham Beame, the mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977.
Ingels' acting career dates back to the early 1960s. In 1960, he appeared twice as himself in NBC's short-lived crime drama, Dan Raven, starring Skip Homeier and set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California. He had his own short-lived ABC television series, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster (1962–63) with John Astin, which lasted one season of thirty-two episodes.
He also acted in films, including Armored Command (1961), The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962), Wild and Wonderful (1964), The Busy Body (1967), A Guide for the Married Man (1967), For Singles Only (1968), The Picasso Summer (1969), If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), Linda Lovelace for President (1975), and Instant Karma (1990). Beginning in the 1970s, Ingels worked primarily as an agent, specializing in representing actors in Celebrity endorsement ads.
Ingels was married twice; first to Jean Marie Frassinelli in 1964, the marriage lasted for only two years until they divorced in 1966. He later married singer and Actress Shirley Jones on November 13, 1977, although despite some drastically different personalities and several separations (Shirley filed, then withdrew, and later had a divorce petition in 2002) the couple remained married until his death in 2015.
He guest-starred on the CBS sitcoms: Pete and Gladys, The Ann Sothern Show, and Hennesey. He also appeared in one episode of ABC's Bewitched as "Diaper Dan", who plants a microphone in Tabatha's rattle so a competing advertising agency can scoop Darrin's ideas. He appeared twice as Sol Pomeroy, a United States Army buddy of the character Rob Petrie, on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1978, Ingels guest starred in Season Two, Episode One of The Love Boat.
His voice-overs and commercials include those for Paul Masson wines, with his uniquely raspy voice. He played Autocat in the Motormouse and Autocat cartoons featured first on The Cattanooga Cats and then in a series of their own, and was Beegle Beagle in The Great Grape Ape Show. He appeared in Pac-Man (1982) as the title character. As recently as 2010, Ingels was cast in an episode of CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
In 1993, Ingels sued Actress June Allyson for his agency commission. Allyson had appeared in commercials for Depend, and Ingels alleged he was not paid his proper commission as her agent. Allyson denied wrongdoing and countersued. Ingels pleaded no contest to making annoying phone calls to Allyson.
In 2003, he sued radio personality Tom Leykis and Westwood One, saying that comments made about him constituted age discrimination. Ingels had called into Leykis's radio program objecting to the content, and Leykis declared on the air that Ingels was "not just older than my demographic, you’re the grandfather of my demographic. In June 2005, Ingels's lawsuit was dismissed and Ingels was ordered to pay Leykis's $25,000 in legal fees.
Ingels died from a massive stroke at Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, on October 21, 2015, at the age of 79. He was survived by his wife, singer and Actress Shirley Jones, and his stepsons. After Ingels' death, Jones stated "He often drove me crazy, but there's not a day I won’t miss him and love him to my core."
