Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Martin Mull, the musician and comedic actor who got his start on the 1970s TV series “Fernwood 2 Night” and went on to play Colonel Mustard on “Clue” and on “Arrested Development” and “Roseanne,” died Thursday. He was 80.
His daughter Maggie announced his death on Instagram, writing: “I am heartbroken to announce that my father passed away at home on June 27, after a valiant battle with a long illness. He was known for excelling in every creative discipline imaginable and also for directing commercials for Red Roof Inn. He would find this joke funny. He was never funny. My father will be greatly missed by his wife and daughter, his friends and colleagues, his fellow artists, actors and musicians and, a sign of a truly exceptional person, many, many dogs. I loved him immensely.
Mull was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for his guest role as political aide Bob Bradley on “Veep.” More recently, he has made guest appearances on “The Afterparty,” “Not Dead Yet” and “Grace and Frankie.”
In 2015, he guest-starred on the NBC comedy “Community” as George Perry, the father of Britta Perry, played by Gillian Jacobs, and on the CBS comedy “Life in Pieces.”
Mull had a recurring role from 2008 to 2013 in “Two and a Half Men” as Russell, a pharmacist who uses and sells drugs illegally and attended Charlie’s funeral in the first episode of season 9. The actor also recurred in “Arrested Development” as a rather incompetent private investigator named Gene Parmesan who has a habit of showing up in crazy disguises.
Mull was a series regular on Seth MacFarlane’s Fox comedy “Dads,” starring Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as video game company owners, in 2013-14, playing the father of Ribisi’s character.
In 2008, he guest-starred on “Law & Order: SVU” as Dr. Gideon Hutton, whose denial of the existence of AIDS led to his conviction for willful negligence in the deaths of several people.
Mull’s film and television career began in 1977 and 1978 when he served as host of a satirical talk show created by Norman Lear, “Fernwood 2 Night,” which was later renamed “America Tonight.” This parody talk show also starred Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard, Gimble’s dim-witted sidekick. These shows were spin-offs of the Norman Lear parody soap opera, “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”
RELATED CONTENT: Martin Mull on Fred Willard: ‘He Was Absolutely, Unconditionally Original’
Willard, who died in 2020 at age 86, and Mull reappeared in the 1985 HBO mockumentary “The History of White People in America.” Mull played Roseanne’s gay boss, Leon Carp, on her ABC sitcom of the same name from 1991 to 1997, and he reunited with Willard for a 1995 episode of the series in which the two were featured in what was likely one of television’s first gay weddings.
In the Ellen De Generes sitcom “The Ellen Show” (not to be confused with the previous series “Ellen”), which aired for 18 episodes on CBS in 2001-2002, Mull regularly played the role of Ed Munn. He also starred as Principal Willard Kraft in “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch” from 1997 to 2000.
From 1998 to 2004, Mull was a regular on the game show “Hollywood Squares” in a run of 425 episodes, many of which were center square.
Martin Eugene Mull was born in Chicago to an actress and director mother and a carpenter father. The family moved to North Ridgeville, Ohio, when he was 2; when he was 15, they moved to New Canaan, Connecticut. He studied painting and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in painting.
Mull got his start in show business not as an actor or comedian but as a songwriter, writing Jane Morgan’s country single “A Girl Named Johnny Cash” in 1970, which reached No. 61 on the Billboard country charts. He began his own recording career shortly thereafter.
He composed the theme song for the 1970 series “The 51st State” and was the musical producer for the 1971 film “Jump.”
Throughout the 1970s, and especially in the first half of the decade, Mull was best known as a musical comedian, performing satirical and humorous songs both live and in studio recordings. He opened for Randy Newman, Frank Zappa, and Bruce Springsteen at various concerts in the early 1970s.
His self-titled debut album, released in 1972, featured notable musicians including Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Levon Helm of the Band, Keith Spring of NRBQ, and Libby Titus. Other albums include “Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room” (1974–73), “Normal” (1974–75), “No Hits, Four Errors: The Best of Martin Mull” (1977), “Sex and Violins” (1978), and “I’m Everyone I’ve Ever Loved.” According to a profile on the AV Club website, Mull had “a Billboard Hot 100 hit with the single ‘Dueling Tubas.'” His early albums were recorded for Georgia-based Capricorn Records, which was closely associated with the Allman Brothers and other Southern rockers of the era.
In the AV Club interview, Mull was asked how a painter found his way into acting, to which he replied, “You know, every painter I know has a day job. They’re teaching art at a university or driving a cab or something. And I’ve been lucky enough to land a day job that’s amazing and a lot of fun and allows me to buy a lot of paint.”
“As far as acting goes, I had a music career on the road for about 17 years, I had bands and stuff, and it came down to my wife and I playing big venues in Vegas, and we couldn’t ask for more than that. There were limousines and suites and all that. But I got tired of it. So I thought I’d give it a try in writing “I had an interview with Norman Lear, and I was a big fan of Mary Hartman. I went there and spoke with him for, I would say, a good hour. We had a great conversation. And afterwards he said to me: “We don’t need authors. It was nice meeting you. See you soon.” And six months later, I got a call to come audition for a role.”
After the attention he received for his role as Barth Gimble on the series “Fernwood 2 Night,” he played one of the few leading roles of his career in the 1980 comedy “Serial,” a satire of life in Marin County in which Mull’s Harvey Holyroyd acts, in the words of the blog Technicolor Dreams, “as an intelligent audience surrogate, verbally challenging every facet of Marin’s laid-back lifestyle.”
In 1980, Mull also had a supporting role in Tony Bill’s “My Bodyguard,” in which he played the hotel manager father of Chris Makepeace’s protagonist Clifford. In “Mr. Mom” (1983), Michael Keaton was the stay-at-home dad, Teri Garr was the working mom, and Martin Mull “is the devious ad agency president, who is out to promote Garr in her own life,” in the words of Roger Ebert.
In 1984, Steve Martin and Martin Mull teamed up to create the sitcom “Domestic Life,” in which Mull played a Seattle television commentator whose teenage son ran highly successful businesses from his bedroom and granted loans to his parents, but the CBS series only lasted 10 years. episodes.
The actor was part of the ensemble of Robert Altman’s little-known satirical film about high school life, “OC and Stiggs” (1985). That year, Mull also played Colonel Mustard in “Clue,” an adaptation of the board game, one of the film roles for which he is best remembered.
He starred in and wrote the screenplay for another little-known film, “Rented Lips” directed by Robert Downey Sr. (1988).
Mull tried her luck on television again as a star opposite Stephanie Faracy of NBC’s “His & Hers,” which disappeared after 13 episodes in 1990, and in “The Jackie Thomas Show” (1992), with Tom Arnold disappeared from ABC after 18 episodes.
The actor began his voiceover work with 1993’s “Family Dog,” an early Brad Bird series in which he provided the lead voice.
Mull played himself in two episodes of Garry Shandling’s HBO series, “The Larry Sanders Show,” in 1992-1993. He also had a supporting role in Robin Williams’ hit film, “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
A trained painter, Mull had been practicing his art since the 1970s and his work appeared in both group and solo exhibitions. One of his paintings, After Dinner Drinks (2008), which belongs to Steve Martin, was used for the cover of “Love Has Come for You”, an album by Martin and Edie Brickell.
He is survived by his wife, Wendy Haas, an actress and composer whom he married in 1982, and his daughter Maggie, a television writer and producer.