Martin Mull participates in “The Cool Kids” panel during the Fox Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 2, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California.
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
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Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES — Martin Mull, who made her a hip sensation in the 1970s, was later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” his daughter said Friday.
Mull’s daughter, television writer and comedian Maggie Mull, said her father died at home on Thursday after a “brave fight against a long illness.”
A guitarist and painter, Mull rose to national fame with a recurring role in the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and its spinoff, “Fernwood Tonight.”
“She excelled in every creative field imaginable and was known for starring in Red Roof’s commercials,” Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post. “He would find that humor funny. He was never funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, his friends and colleagues, his fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and—the mark of a truly exceptional person—many, many dogs.”
Known for his blond hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, grew up in Ohio and Connecticut, and studied art in Rhode Island and Rome.
His first foray into show business was as a songwriter, penning the 1970 semi-hit “A Girl Named Johnny Cash” for singer Jane Morgan.
He combined music and comedy in an act he brought to hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.
“I was a guitar player in 1976 when a sit-down comic appeared at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip and Norman Lear walked in and asked me,” Mull told The Associated Press in 1980. “He cast me as a wife beater in ‘Mary. Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ After four months I quit my own show.
His time was remembered on the 1973 country rock classic “Lonesome LA Cowboy,” where Riders of the Purple Sage gave him a shout-out along with music legends Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.
“I know Chris and Rita and Marty Mull hangin’ at the Troubadour,” the song says.
In “Fernwood Tonight” (sometimes styled “Fernwood 2 Night”), he played a double for Barth Kimble, a local talk show host in a Midwestern town, and his “Mary Hartman” character. Fred Willard, a frequent collaborator with very similar comic sensibilities, played his sidekick. It was later revamped as “America 2 Night” and set in Southern California.
He will replace Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” as a real talk show host.
1983’s “Mr. Mom.” He starred as Colonel Mustard in the 1985 film adaptation of the board game “Clue,” which, like many other appearances in Mule, became a cult classic.
In the 1980s, Cinemax first aired what many consider to be his masterpiece, “A History of White People in America.” Mull co-created the show, playing a “60 Minutes”-style investigative reporter investigating all things milquetoast and mundane. Willard became a co-star again.
He co-wrote and starred with Robert Downey Jr. in 1988’s “Rented Lips,” directed by his father, Robert Sr.
His co-star Jennifer Tilly said in an X post on Friday that Mule was “such a hilariously charming and kind person.”
In the 1990s he became best known for his recurring role over several seasons on “Roseanne,” in which he played the title character’s hotter, less sleazy boss, played by openly gay Willard as his partner, who died in 2020.
Mull later starred as private eye Jean Parmesan in “Arrested Development.”
“I’m very proud of what I did on ‘Veep,’ but I like to think it’s very collaborative, and it’s very collaborative at my age,” Mull told the AP after his nomination. “It can go as far as ‘Fernwood’.”
Other comedians and actors were often his biggest fans.
“Martin is great,” “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig said at X. “So funny, so talented, so good. I was lucky enough to play him on The Jackie Thomas Show and treasure every moment with a legend. Fernwood was such an influence on my life tonight.
Mull is his daughter and musician Wendy Haas, his wife since 1982.
