The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Happy As Larry]

Martin Mull, Arrested Development and Roseanne actor, dies aged 80

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 years old.
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, on which he played Barth Gimble, the host of a satirical talk show.

“He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials,” Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post. “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. He combined his music and comedy in 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.”

In the 1980s he appeared in films including Mr Mom and Clue, and in the 1990s had a recurring role on Roseanne.

He would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” and would be nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for a guest turn 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 Paul Feig said in an X post. “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.”

Martin Mull, Arrested Development and Roseanne actor, dies aged 80 | Television | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown who was also one of Hollywood’s most renowned script doctors, has died. He was 89.
Born in Los Angeles, Towne started his film career acting and writing for producer Roger Corman. In the early 1970s he emerged as a key figure in the New Hollywood movement, collaborating with filmmakers including Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.
Towne’s credited scripts from the period included Roman Polanski’s classic Chinatown as well as The Last Detail and Shampoo. But he was also known as one of the industry’s leading script doctors, doing uncredited work on films such as Bonnie And Clyde, The Parallax View, McCabe And Mrs Miller and The Godfather.
Later, Towne wrote scripts for several of Tom Cruise’s early box office hits, among them Days Of Thunder, The Firm and Mission: Impossible and its first sequel.
He also began to direct, working from his own scripts on Personal Best, Tequila Sunrise, Ask The Dust and other projects.
Besides his 1975 Academy Award for Chinatown, Towne earned Oscar nominations for The Last Detail, Shampoo and Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes. He won Writers Guild of America awards for Chinatown, Shampoo and TV series Mad Men (on which he was a consulting producer) and, in 1997, the Guild’s Laurel Award for screenwriting achievement. He also won a Bafta for Chinatown and The Last Detail.

Oscar-winning ‘Chinatown’ screenwriter Robert Towne dies at 89 | Features | Screen