Photo: Martin Mull | Martin Eugene Mull (August 18, 1943 – June 27, 2024) was an American comic actor whose career included contributions as a musician and painter. He became known on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, its spin-off Fernwood 2 Night, and America 2 Night. Other notable roles included Colonel Mustard in the 1985 film Clue, Leon Carp on Roseanne, Willard Kraft on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Vlad Masters / Vlad Plasmius on Danny Phantom, and Gene Parmesan on Arrested Development. He had a recurring role on Two and a Half Men as Russell, a drug-using, humorous pharmacist.
Music
Mull broke into show business as a songwriter, penning Jane Morgan’s 1970 country single, “A Girl Named Johnny Cash”, which peaked at No. 61 on Billboard’s country charts. Shortly thereafter, he began his own recording career.
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. Rather than use the stage trappings of most musical acts, Mull decorated his stage with comfortable thrift store furniture. Notable live gigs included opening for Randy Newman and Sandy Denny at Boston Symphony Hall in 1973, Frank Zappa at Austin’s Armadillo World Headquarters in 1973, Billy Joel in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1974; and for Bruce Springsteen at the Shady Grove Music Fair in Gaithersburg, Maryland in October 1974. His self-titled debut album, released by Capricorn in 1972, featured many noteworthy musicians including Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Levon Helm from The Band, Keith Spring of NRBQ, Jack Bone, and Libby Titus.
Elvis Costello and Gary Sperrazza attribute the remark “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” to Martin Mull.[
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Mull was divorced twice and then married singer Wendy Haas. Mull and Haas had a daughter, Maggie, who as of 2021 is a co-executive producer for Family Guy. In a 2010 interview on The Green Room with Paul Provenza, Mull said that he was agnostic, “I certainly don’t begrudge someone else their choice to follow whatever they do, it’s just for me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think more harm has come to this planet through organized religion, probably, than any single situation that we’ve invented.”
Mull died from a long illness at his Los Angeles home on June 27, 2024; he was 80.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Mull
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS
If you are thinking of committing suicide, please think of how much it will hurt your family and friends, and maybe cause them a whole lot of trouble and financial problems.
If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
July 2024
1: Fausto Bordalo Dias, 75, Portuguese composer and singer; Nino Vella, 31, French musician.
June 2024
30: Lucius Banda, 53, Malawian singer-songwriter and politician, MP (2004–2006); Peter Collins, 73, English record producer (Power Windows, Operation: Mindcrime, These Days), pancreatic cancer.
29: Mourad Tsimpou, 19, French pianist and singer, complications from liver disease; Martti Wallén, 75, Finnish operatic bass singer (Royal Swedish Opera).
28: Lando Bartolini, 87, Italian operatic tenor; Kong Nay, 80, Cambodian musician and chapei dang veng player; Betty Veldpaus, 72, Dutch singer (Pussycat).
27: Adam, 64, Israeli singer and actor, cancer; Kinky Friedman, 79, American musician, writer, and politician, complications from Parkinson’s disease; Alexander Knaifel, 80, Russian composer (The Canterville Ghost); Martin Mull, 80, American actor (Clue, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Roseanne) and musician.
26: Gary Grant, American trumpeter, composer, and music producer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2024
Photo: Martin Mull | From his Facebook page
Martin Mull, Actor and Musician, Dies After Long Illness // Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths
