Martin Mull participates in a panel discussion titled “Cool Kids” during the Fox Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 2, 2018, in Beverly Hills, California.
Willie Sangwan/Invision/AP
Hide caption
toggle caption
Willie Sangwan/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES — Martin Moll, whose hilarious, esoteric comedy and acting made him a sensation in the 1970s and later became a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” his daughter said Friday.
Moll’s daughter, TV writer and comedian Maggie Moll, said her father died at home on Thursday after a “courageous fight against a long illness.”
Moll, who was also a guitarist and painter, achieved national fame with a recurring role on Norman Lear’s satirical television series “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” and a starring role in the spinoff series “Fernwood Tonight.”
“He was known for excelling in every creative field imaginable and also doing commercials for Red Roof Inn,” Maggie Moll said in an Instagram post. “He would find that joke funny. He was never funny. My father will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and co-workers, by fellow artists, comedians and musicians, and – the mark of a truly exceptional person – by many, many dogs.”
Known for his blond hair and well-trimmed mustache, Moll was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut, and studied art in Rhode Island and Rome.
His first foray into show business was as a songwriter, writing the semi-successful 1970 hit “A Girl Named Johnny Cash” for singer Jane Morgan.
He combined music and comedy in an act that brought him to Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.
“In 1976 I was a guitarist and comedian appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me,” Moll told the Associated Press in 1980. “Hartman, Mary Hartman. Four months later, I was off my own show.”
His time on the Strip was immortalized in the 1973 country rock classic “Lonesome LA Cowboy,” in which the band Riders of the Purple Sage gave him a tribute alongside music stars Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.
“I know Chris, Rita and Marty Mole are gathering at the troubadour,” the song says.
On “Fernwood Tonight” (sometimes called “Fernwood 2 Night”), he played Barth Gimbel, a local talk show host in a Midwestern town and his character’s twin, Mary Hartman. Fred Willard, a frequent collaborator with very similar comedic sensibilities, played his assistant. The show was later remade as “America 2 Night” and set in Southern California.
He will become a real talk show host as a replacement for Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show.”
Moll often played somewhat sleazy, somewhat thin, and often vulgar characters as he did as Teri Garr’s boss and Michael Keaton’s antagonist in “Mr. Mother.” He played Colonel Mustard in the 1985 film adaptation of the board game “Clue,” which, like many things Moll has appeared in, has become a cult classic.
The 1980s also brought what many believed to be his best work, A History of White People in America, a mockumentary that first aired on Cinemax. Moll co-created the show and stars as a “60 Minutes”-style investigative reporter investigating all things nice and mundane. Willard was a co-star again.
He wrote and starred in the 1988 film Rented Lips alongside Robert Downey Jr., which was directed by his father, Robert Sr.
His co-star Jennifer Tilly said in a post on X on Friday that Moll was a “smart, charismatic, kind person.”
In the 1990s, he was best known for his recurring role on several seasons of “Roseanne,” playing a warmer, less rude boss to the main character, an openly gay man who played his partner Willard, who died in 2020.
Moll would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” a classic character on a classic show, and would be nominated for an Emmy, his first, in 2016 for a guest appearance on “Veep.”
“I’m very proud of what I did on ‘Veep,’ but I’d like to think it was probably more of a collective, at my age it was more of a collective,” Moll told The Associated Press after his nomination. “It might go back to ‘Fernwood.’”
Comedians and other actors were often his biggest fans.
“Martin was the greatest,” Bridesmaids director Paul Feig said on X. So funny, so talented, such a nice guy. I was lucky enough to work with him on The Jackie Thomas Show and cherish every moment with the legend. “Fernwood Tonight had a huge impact on my life.”
Moll is survived by his daughter and musician Wendy Haas, his wife since 1982.
. “Professional creator. Lifelong thinker. Reader. Beer buff. Troublemaker. Evil problem solver.”