Martin Mull, comedian and actor in ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘Roseanne,’ dies at 80 : NPR
Martin Mull participates in “The Cool Children” panel throughout the Fox Tv Critics Affiliation Summer season Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton lodge on Aug. 2, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
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Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES — Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and appearing made him a hip sensation within the Seventies and later a beloved visitor star on sitcoms together with “Roseanne” and “Arrested Improvement,” has died, his daughter stated Friday.
Mull’s daughter, TV author and comedian artist Maggie Mull, stated her father died at house on Thursday after “a valiant combat in opposition to a protracted sickness.”
Mull, who was additionally a guitarist and painter, got here to nationwide fame with a recurring function on the Norman Lear-created satirical cleaning soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring function in its spinoff, “Fernwood Tonight.”
“He was identified for excelling at each inventive self-discipline possible and likewise for doing Purple Roof Inn commercials,” Maggie Mull stated in an Instagram submit. “He would discover that joke humorous. He was by no means not humorous. My dad will likely be deeply missed by his spouse and daughter, by his pals and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and—the signal of a really distinctive individual—by many, many canines.”
Identified for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut and studied artwork in Rhode Island and Rome.
His first foray into present enterprise was as a songwriter, penning the 1970 semi-hit “A Lady Named Johnny Money” for singer Jane Morgan.
He would mix music and comedy in an act that he delivered to hip Hollywood golf equipment within the Seventies.
“In 1976 I used to be a guitar participant and sit-down comedian showing on the Roxy on the Sundown Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me,” Mull informed The Related Press in 1980. “He forged me because the spouse beater on ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ 4 months later I used to be spun off alone present.”
His time on the Strip was memorialized within the 1973 nation rock traditional “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy” the place the Riders of the Purple Sage give him a shoutout together with music luminaries Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.
“I do know Kris and Rita and Marty Mull are hangin’ on the Troubadour,” the track says.
On “Fernwood Tonight” (typically styled as “Fernwood 2 Night time”), he performed Barth Gimble, the host of a neighborhood speak present in a midwestern city and twin to his “Mary Hartman” character. Fred Willard, a frequent collaborator with very comparable comedian sensibilities, performed his sidekick. It was later revamped as “America 2 Night time” and set in Southern California.
He would get to be an actual speak present host as an alternative to Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Present.”
Mull usually performed barely sleazy, considerably slimy and sometimes smarmy characters as he did as Teri Garr’s boss and Michael Keaton’s foe in 1983’s “Mr. Mother.” He performed Colonel Mustard within the 1985 film adaptation of the board recreation “Clue,” which, like many issues Mull appeared in, has develop into a cult traditional.
The Nineteen Eighties additionally introduced what many thought was his finest work, “A Historical past of White Individuals in America,” a mockumentary that first aired on Cinemax. Mull co-created the present and starred as a “60 Minutes” fashion investigative reporter investigating all issues milquetoast and mundane. Willard was once more a co-star.
He wrote and starred in 1988’s “Rented Lips” alongside Robert Downey Jr., whose father, Robert Sr., directed.
His co-star Jennifer Tilly stated in an X submit Friday that Mull was “such a witty charismatic and sort individual.”
Within the Nineties he was finest identified for his recurring function on a number of seasons on “Roseanne,” by which he performed a hotter, much less sleazy boss to the title character, an brazenly homosexual man whose accomplice was performed by Willard, who died in 2020.
Mull would later play personal eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Improvement,” a cult-classic character on a cult-classic present, and can be nominated for an Emmy, his first, in 2016 for a visitor run on “Veep.”
“What I did on ‘Veep’ I’m very happy with, however I’d wish to assume it’s in all probability extra collective, at my age it’s extra collective,” Mull informed the AP after his nomination. “It would go all the way in which again to ‘Fernwood.’”
Different comedians and actors had been usually his largest followers.
“Martin was the best,” “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig stated on X. “So humorous, so proficient, such a pleasant man. Was fortunate sufficient to behave with him on The Jackie Thomas Present and treasured each second being with a legend. Fernwood Tonight was so influential in my life.”
Mull is survived by his daughter and musician Wendy Haas, his spouse since 1982.
