Remembering 2024’s Losses: Martin Mull

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Ooh, it’s cold out there. As I have to go out tomorrow (doctor’s appointment), today I’m staying home, where it’s warm, and enjoying another Boca burger (those things are addictive…makes me realize how much I miss beef [yes, they’re veggie burgers, but when you have a beef allergy, “an incredible simulation” [as the commercial used to say] goes a long way]) and ready to spring another discussion on you about one of the notable individuals we lost in 2024. I’m not “cheating” with this one, although he could have been in the music department. Martin Mull Most people know Martin Mull as an actor, so the fact that he recorded a number of albums in the 70s is probably news to you. Here’s something else that might shock you: he was a painter! He went to the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. (RISD is where Talking Heads originated in the 70s…a little after Mull’s days there.) Mull’s fame started in music in 1970, when he wrote a parody of “A Boy Named Sue,” called “A Girl Named Johnny Cash.” It was the parody soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman that made Mull a star. (Side note: one of the other “minor character” actors on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was Dabney Coleman, who also died in 2024.) After his character Garth’s death, he returned to the show as the dead man’s twin brother (a typical soap opera ploy), then hosted a spin-off talk show called Fernwood 2Night. Throughout his life he combined his various talents and loves (his painting After Dinner Drinks served as the cover of an album by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell) into one multi-faceted career. His deadpan humor is going to be missed. Martin Mull Born Marin Eugene Mull, August 18, 1943, Chicago, Illinois Died June 27, 2024, Los Angeles, California (long illness) (age 80) Here’s one of Mull’s funniest bits, a “bossa nova love song” that has to be edited for television broadcast: