Cluedo actor arrested at 80

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Martin Mull, the musician and comedic actor who got his start on the 1970s TV series “Fernwood 2 Night” and went on to star as Col. Mustard on “Clue” as well as “Arrested Development” and “Roseanne,” died Thursday. He was 80.

His daughter Maggie announced his passing on Instagram, writing: “I am heartbroken to share that my father passed away at home on June 27th after a courageous battle with a long illness. He was known for excelling in every creative discipline imaginable and also for making commercials for Red Roof Inn. He thought that joke was funny. He never failed to laugh. My father will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, his friends and colleagues, his fellow artists, comedians and musicians, and – a sign of a truly exceptional person – many, many dogs. I loved him very much.”

Mull was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for his guest role as political aide Bob Bradley on “Veep.” Most recently, he has made appearances in “The Afterparty”, “Not Dead Yet” and “Grace and Frankie”.

He guest-starred in 2015 on the NBC comedy “Community” as George Perry, the father of Gillian Jacobs’ Britta Perry, and in 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 regular character on Seth MacFarlane’s one-season Fox comedy series “Dads,” starring Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as the owners of a video game company, 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 really began with his stint as talk show host Barth Gimble on the wickedly satirical Norman Lear-created television series “Fernwood 2 Night,” which was later retitled “America Tonight.” in 1977 and 1978. the talk show also starred Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard, Gimble’s dim-witted sidekick. These shows were spin-offs of Lear’s flagship soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

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Willard, who died in 2020 at age 86, and Mull teamed up again on 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 certainly the one of the first gay marriages on television.

On Ellen DeGeneres’ sitcom “The Ellen Show” (not to be confused with the earlier “Ellen”), which ran for 18 episodes on CBS in 2001-02, Mull was a series regular as Ed Munn. He recurred on “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” as Principal Willard Kraft from 1997 to 2000.

From 1998 to 2004, Mull was a regular on the game show “Hollywood Squares” in a series of 425 episodes, many of which were the central 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 music producer for the 1971 film “Jump.”

Throughout the 1970s, and particularly in the first half of the decade, Mull was best known as a musical comedian, performing satirical and humorous songs live and in the studio. He opened for Randy Newman, Frank Zappa and Bruce Springsteen at various concerts in the early ’70s.

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 included 1974’s “Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room,” “Normal,” 1974’s “Days of Wine and Neuroses” (1975), “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 scored “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 to acting, to which he replied, “You know, every painter I know has a day job. They’re either teaching art at a university or they’re driving a cab or something. And I’ve been lucky enough to have a day job that’s amazing and really 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 whatnot, and it basically consisted of my wife and I playing big venues in Vegas, and you could do that. There were limousines and suites and everything. But I got tired of that. So I thought I’d try my hand at in writing for television. And I wanted to have an interview with Norman Lear, and I was a big fan of “Mary Hartman.” I went in and talked to him for, oh, I’d say a good hour. We had a great conversation. And then he said, “We don’t need writers.” It was a pleasure to meet you. See you soon.’ And then six months later, I got a call to come read for a role.

After the attention he received for his role as Barth Gimble on the syndicated 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 Harvey Holyroyd, played by Mull, acts, in the words of the blog Technicolor Dreams, “as the audience surrogate, verbally questioning every facet of Marin’s laid-back lifestyle.”

Also in 1980, Mull had a supporting role in Tony Bill’s “My Bodyguard” as 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 sneaky president of the ad agency, with plans to promote Garr in his 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 runs highly successful businesses from his bedroom and makes loans to his parents, but the CBS series only lasted 10 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” (1988), directed by Robert Downey Sr.

Mull tried his luck again in television as a star opposite Stephanie Faracy on NBC’s “His & Hers,” which departed after 13 episodes in 1990, and on “The Jackie Thomas Show” (1992), starring Tom Arnold and departed 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 1992-93. 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, the former Wendy Haas, an actress and songwriter whom he married in 1982, and his daughter Maggie, a television screenwriter and producer.