Martin Mull, Clue and 'Roseanne' Actor, Dies at 80

Mull was nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for his role as political aide Bob Bradley in 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 GillianJacobs Britta Perry, and in the CBS comedy Life in Pieces.

Mull had a recurring role from 2008 to 2013 on Two and a Half Men as Russell, a pharmacist who illegally used and sold drugs and attended Charlie's funeral in the premiere episode of season nine. The actor also returned in Arrested Development as a rather inept private detective named Gene Parmesan who had a habit of showing up in crazy disguises.

Mull was a series regular on Seth MacFarlane's one-season 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 intentional negligence in the deaths of several people.

Mull's film and television career began in 1977 and 1978 with his role as talk show host Barth Gimble in the television series Fernwood 2 Night, created by Norman Lear and later retitled America Tonight. This parody talk show also starred Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard, Gimbles' dimwitted sidekick. These shows were spin-offs of the soap opera parody of Lear, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Willard, who died in 2020 at the age of 86, and Mull reappeared in the 1985 HBO mockumentary The History of White People in America. Mull played Roseannes' gay boss Leon Carp on its ABC sitcom of the same title from 1991 to 1997, and he reunited with Willard. for a 1995 episode of the series in which the two featured in what was certainly one of the first gay weddings on television.

On Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom The Ellen Show (not to be confused with the previous series Ellen), which ran for 18 episodes on CBS in 2001–2002, Mull was a series regular in the role of Ed Munn. He appeared recurrently on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch as director 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 them as 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 years old; at 15, they moved to New Canaan, Connecticut. He studied painting and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Mull first got his start in show business not as an actor or comedian, but as a songwriter, writing Jane Morgan's 1970 country single, A Girl Named Johnny Cash, which peaked at number 61 on the Billboard country charts. He began his own recording career soon after.

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 particularly in the first half of the decade, Mull was best known as a musical comedian, performing satirical and humorous songs live and in studio recordings. 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 include Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room (1973), Normal (1974), Days of Wine and Neuroses (1975), No Hits, Four Errors: The Best of Martin Mull (1977), Sex and Violins (1978) and Im Everyone Ive Ever Loved. According to aprofile on the AV Clubwebsite, Mulla scored a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with the single Dueling Tubas. His first 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 In an interview with the Club, 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 either teach art at a university or they drive a cab or something. And I was lucky enough to have an amazing, really fun day job that 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, had bands and whatnot, and it boiled down to my wife and I playing in big venues in Vegas, and we couldn't ask for more than that. There were limousines and suites and everything. But I got tired of it. So I thought I'd try my luckin writingFor television. I had an interview with Norman Lear, I was a big fan of Mary Hartman. I went there and talked to him for, oh, I'd say a good hour. We had a great conversation. And afterwards he said to me: “We don’t need writers. It was nice meeting you. We'll see each other. »And then six months later, I got a call to come audition for a role.

Following 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 Mulls Harvey Holyroyd acts, in the words of the blog Technicolor Dreams, as the intelligent audience surrogate, verbally challenging 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 Mull is the devious president of the ad agency, with plans to promote Garr in his own life, according to the words by Roger Ébert.

In 1984, Steve Martin and Martin Mull teamed up to create the sitcom Domestic Life, in which Mull played a Seattle TV 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 in Robert Altman's little-known satirical take on 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 series regular 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), starring Tom Arnold and which left 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 The Larry Sanders Show on HBO in 1992–93. He also had a supporting role in Mrs. Robin Williams' 1993 hit film 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.