Cluedo actor arrested at 80

Martin Mull, the musician and comedic actor who got his start on the 1970s TV series “Fernwood Tonight” 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 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, comedians and musicians and, as a sign of a truly special 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.” 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 “My Uncle Charlie”, he played the role of Russell, a pharmacist who uses and sells drugs illegally and who attended Charlie's funeral in the first episode of season 9. The actor also played recurring role in “Arrested Development”, as a rather inept private detective named Gene Parmesan, who has a habit of appearing in insane disguises.

Mull was also a series regular on Seth MacFarlane's one-season Fox comedy “Dads,” starring Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as the owners of a video game company, in 2013–14, playing Ribisi's character's father.

In 2008, he appeared 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 really began with his stint as talk show host Barth Gimble on the wickedly satirical Norman Lear-created television series “Fernwood Tonight” and “America 2-night” in 1977 and 1978, co-starring Fred Willard as dimwitted sidekick Jerry Hubbard. These shows were spin-offs of the hit series “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

Willard and Mull teamed up again in 1985 for the HBO mockumentary “The History of White People in America.” Mull starred as Leon Carp, Roseanne's gay boss, 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 one of television's first gay marriages.

In recent years he has appeared in films occasionally, but usually in small supporting roles.

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 series of 425 episodes, many of which took place in 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 especially in the first half of the decade, Mull was best known as a musical comedian, performing satirical and humorous songs live and during 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 included “Normal” (1974), “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 had “a Billboard Hot 100 hit with the single 'Dueling Tubas.'”

In the AV Club interview, Mull was asked how a painter found his way to acting, to which he replied, “And it’s always painting. I’ve always painted. This whole thing has been a way of trying to put paint on my table.” [Laughs.] You know, every painter I know has a full-time job. They teach art at a university or drive a taxi or whatever. And I've been lucky enough to land a full-time job that's amazing and a lot of fun and allows me to buy a lot of paint. But how did I start doing this?

“As far as acting, 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 ask for more than that. There were limousines and suites and everything. 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 in and talked to him for, I'd say, a good hour. We had a great conversation. And afterwards he said, 'We don't need any writers. It was nice meeting you. See you soon.' And six months later, I got a call to come audition for a part.”

After the attention he received for his role as Barth Gimble, 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 plays Harvey Holyroyd of Mull, in the words of Technicolor. The Dreams Blog, “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 sneaky president of the ad agency, who 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 ran wildly successful businesses out of his bedroom and gave his parents loans, but the CBS series lasted only 10 episodes.

The actor was part of the ensemble of Robert Altman's little-known high school satire “OC and Stiggs” (1985). That year, Mull also played Colonel Mustard in “Clue,” an adaptation of the board game.

He starred in and wrote the screenplay for another little-known film, “Rented Lips” directed by Robert Downey Sr. (1988).

Mull tried series regular television again, starring opposite Stephanie Faracy in NBC's “His & Hers,” which disappeared after 13 episodes in 1990, and in “The Jackie Thomas Show” (1992), with Tom Arnold and disappeared from ABC after 18 episodes. episodes.

The actor began his voice acting career in 1993 with “Family Dog”, one of Brad Bird's first series in which he provided the lead voice.

Mull guest-starred as himself on two episodes of Garry Shandling's “The Larry Sanders Show” in 1992-93.

The actor played a supporting role in Robin Williams' breakout film “Mrs. Fire of Doubt.

Trained as a painter, Mull has been practicing his art since the 1970s and his works have been featured in group and solo exhibitions. He participated in the June 15, 1971, exhibition “Flush with the Walls” in the men's room of the Boston Museum of Art to protest the museum's dearth of contemporary and local art.

A book of some of his paintings, Paintings Drawings and Words, was published in 1995. One of his paintings was used for the cover of Joyce Carol Oates' 2008 novel My Sister, My Love. Another painting, 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. In the 2000s, he exhibited in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, among other cities.