![](/polopoly_fs/1.6947618.1719864087!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
At least 20 homes have been affected by flash flooding in the British Columbia Interior following heavy rains that forced the overnight closure of the Trans-Canada Highway near Kamloops.
Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including "Roseanne" and "Arrested Development," has died, his daughter said Friday. He was 80.
Mull's daughter, TV writer and comic artist Maggie Mull, said her father died at home on Thursday after "a valiant fight against a long illness."
Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role on the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," and the starring role in its spinoff, "Fernwood Tonight."
"He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials," Maggie Mull said in an . "He would find that joke funny. He was never not funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and—the sign of a truly exceptional person—by many, many dogs."
Known for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull 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, penning the 1970 semi-hit "A Girl Named Johnny Cash" for singer Jane Morgan.
He would combine music and comedy in an act that he brought to hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.
"In 1976 I was a guitar player and sit-down comic appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me," Mull told The Associated Press in 1980. "He cast me as the wife beater on `Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.' Four months later I was spun off on my own show."
His time on the Strip was memorialized in the 1973 country rock classic "Lonesome L.A. Cowboy" where the Riders of the Purple Sage give him a shoutout along with music luminaries Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.
"I know Kris and Rita and Marty Mull are hangin' at the Troubadour," the song says.
On "Fernwood Tonight" (sometimes styled as "Fernwood 2 Night"), he played Barth Gimble, the host of a local talk show in a midwestern town and twin to his "Mary Hartman" character. Fred Willard, a frequent collaborator with very similar comic sensibilities, played his sidekick. It was later revamped as "America 2 Night" and set in Southern California.
He would get to be a real talk show host as a substitute for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show."
Mull often played slightly sleazy, somewhat slimy and often smarmy characters as he did as Teri Garr's boss and Michael Keaton's foe in 1983's "Mr. Mom." He played Colonel Mustard in the 1985 movie adaptation of the board game "Clue," which, like many things Mull appeared in, has become a cult classic.
The 1980s also brought what many thought was his best work, "A History of White People in America," a mockumentary that first aired on Cinemax. Mull co-created the show and starred as a "60 Minutes" style investigative reporter investigating all things milquetoast and mundane. Willard was again a co-star.
He wrote and starred in 1988's "Rented Lips" alongside Robert Downey Jr., whose father, Robert Sr., directed.
His co-star Jennifer Tilly said in Friday that Mull was "such a witty charismatic and kind person."
In the 1990s he was best known for his recurring role on several seasons on "Roseanne," in which he played a warmer, less sleazy boss to the title character, an openly gay man whose partner was played by Willard, who died in 2020.
Mull would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on "Arrested Development," a cult-classic character on a cult-classic show, and would be nominated for an Emmy, his first, in 2016 for a guest run on "Veep."
"What I did on `Veep' I'm very proud of, but I'd like to think it's probably more collective, at my age it's more collective," Mull told the AP after his nomination. "It might go all the way back to `Fernwood."'
Other comedians and actors were often his biggest fans.
"Martin was the greatest," "Bridesmaids" director . "So funny, so talented, such a nice guy. Was lucky enough to act with him on The Jackie Thomas Show and treasured every moment being with a legend. Fernwood Tonight was so influential in my life."
Mull is survived by his daughter and musician Wendy Haas, his wife since 1982.
At least 20 homes have been affected by flash flooding in the British Columbia Interior following heavy rains that forced the overnight closure of the Trans-Canada Highway near Kamloops.
Yellowhead County in west-central Alberta says a fire that prompted the closure of a major highway west of Edmonton involved a gas metering station.
Eating higher levels of ultraprocessed food may shorten lifespans by more than 10 per cent, according to a new, unpublished study of over 500,000 people whom researchers followed for nearly three decades.
Eddie Murphy is reflecting on some of the “cheap shots†he feels he’s taken over the years.
The next quarterly GST/HST tax credit payment is expected to go out this week, according to the Canada Revenue Agency.
A Florida judge released Monday afternoon the transcripts of a 2006 grand jury investigation that looked into sex trafficking and rape allegations made against the late millionaire and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The U.S. Supreme Court found on Monday that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for any actions that were within his constitutional powers as president, but can for private acts, in a landmark ruling recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
Recent high school graduate Suborno Isaac Bari, 12, plans to start studying math and physics at New York University in the fall, but he’s already got his ambitious sights set on beginning a doctoral program.
England star Jude Bellingham is being investigated by UEFA over a potentially offensive gesture made during a European Championship win against Slovakia.
When Zhya Aramiy was living in Turkey and Iraq, he had to keep his Pride flags hidden away.
A rave at the Ontario Science Centre was the place where Greg LeBlanc says his relationship first began with his husband Mark in 1997.
Travellers flying with WestJet continue to watch as the airline cancels more flights due to a sudden strike by its mechanics union.
The remains of a soldier from Newfoundland killed in the battlefields of France during the First World War will be laid to rest in St. John's Monday, bringing an emotional end to a years-long effort in a place still shaken and forever changed by the bloodshed.
The city is entering the final stages of resuming water service through its repaired feeder main, as water consumption continues to fall below the city’s threshold level.
A grandfather and grandson duo proudly graduated alongside each other at the same northern Manitoba school.
A large basking shark was captured close to the shoreline on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore.
The world's largest hockey stick could soon become the world's most in-pieces hockey stick as a Vancouver Island community prepares to tear down and carve up the Canadian landmark.
For half a decade, a Saskatoon family has been trying to bring their orphaned niece to Canada, they say now it’s a matter of life or death.