Martin Mull, beloved actor identified for “Fernwood 2 Night,” “Roseanne” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” dies at 80

Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and performing made him a hip sensation within the Seventies and later a beloved visitor star on sitcoms together with “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” has died, his daughter stated Friday. He was 80. 

Mull’s Daughter, TV author and comedian artist Maggie Mull, stated her father died at residence on Thursday after “a valiant combat towards a protracted sickness.”

Mull, who was additionally a guitarist and painter, got here to nationwide fame with a recurring function on the Norman Lear-created satirical cleaning soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring function in its spinoff, “Fernwood 2 Night,” on which he performed the host of a satirical speak present.

“He was identified for excelling at each artistic self-discipline possible and in addition for doing Red Roof Inn commercials,” Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post. “He would discover that joke humorous. He was by no means not humorous. My dad might be deeply missed by his spouse and daughter, by his associates and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and —the signal of a very distinctive individual— by many, many canine.”

Melissa Joan Hart, who acted alongside Mull within the sequence “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” paid tribute to him on Instagram on Friday, calling him “a beautiful man who I’m higher for realizing.”

“I’ve such fond recollections of working with him and being in awe of his large physique of labor,” she wrote.  

Known for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut. He studied artwork in Rhode Island and Rome. He mixed his music and comedy in hip Hollywood golf equipment within the Seventies.

“In 1976 I used to be a guitar participant and sit-down comedian showing on the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me,” Mull advised The Associated Press in 1980. “He forged me because the spouse beater on ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ Four months later I used to be spun off by myself present.”

In the Eighties he appeared in movies together with “Mr. Mom” and “Clue,” and within the Nineties had a recurring function on “Roseanne.”

He would later play non-public eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” and could be nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for a visitor activate “Veep.”