Ed Asner
Ed Asner (born November 15, 1929, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.—died August 29, 2021, Los Angeles, California) was an American actor known for his trademark husky voice and his role as Lou Grant, a gruff news producer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–77).
The son of immigrants, Asner was raised as one of five children in an Orthodox Jewish family. He got his start as a performer on a high-school radio station. Later, at the University of Chicago, which he attended from 1947 to 1949, he acted in several stage productions. After being drafted and serving in the U.S. Army (1951–53), Asner was beckoned back to Chicago. There he helped found the Playwrights Theatre Club, along with other budding actors Bernard Sahlins, David Shepherd, and Paul Sills; Sahlins and Sills would later found—along with fellow University of Chicago graduate Howard Alk—Second City, Chicago’s legendary improvisational comedy club. Asner left Chicago for New York City in 1955 when the Playwrights Theatre Club changed its name to the Compass Players and began performing improvisatory theatre, which he was not interested in pursuing. In New York he began finding Off-Broadway roles, notably as Peachum, the boss of the beggars in Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1955–61).
In 1961 Asner left New York for Los Angeles, where he turned to television acting. He performed on television throughout the 1960s, in shows such as the crime drama Naked City (1958–63; in the 1961 season), the mobster drama The Untouchables (1959–63; in the 1962–63 season), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962–65; in the 1963 season), and the short-lived but critically acclaimed political drama Slattery’s People (1964–65; in the 1964 season).
Asner finally got his big break in 1970, in the tremendously popular sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Performing as part of an ensemble cast that included Betty White, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Cloris Leachman, and Valerie Harper, Asner played the role of Lou Grant, the headstrong but endearing boss of a local television news station at which Mary Richards (played by Mary Tyler Moore) worked. Asner’s distinct voice and stocky build made him a perfect fit for the character. He won three Emmy Awards (1971, 1972, 1975) for his performances over seven seasons. The Grant character proved so popular that when The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended in 1977, Lou Grant got his own eponymous spin-off series (1977–82), moving from comedy to drama. He won Emmys for that role in 1978 and 1980.
In 1977 Asner was cast as the slave-ship captain Thomas Davies in Roots, the groundbreaking television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s “saga of an American family.” Asner’s Davies was a sympathetic white character who was invented for the miniseries to ease the viewing experience. His character served to counteract the horrific treatment endured by the slaves, which was depicted in graphic detail. Asner won an Emmy Award for his performance.
He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1981 and used his position, which he held until 1985, as a way to vocalize his political views. His most public agenda was his fight to hamper the U.S. government’s involvement in Central America, particularly in El Salvador, a position that put him at odds with fellow SAG member Charlton Heston. Asner’s political activism coincided with the cancellation of Lou Grant, an event he believed had not been coincidental. His TV and movie offers, however, did not slow down. During the 1980s his work included appearances in eight made-for-television movies and starring roles in two television series, the sitcom Off the Rack (1984–85) and the prime-time drama The Bronx Zoo (1987–88). He performed many times in the 1990s, notably as a retired race car driver in the TV series Thunder Alley (1994–95). He also voiced several animated characters during the ’90s, in shows such as Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–96; in the first five seasons), Batman: The Animated Series (1992–95; in the 1992 and 1994 seasons), and many others.
Asner continued to rack up television roles in the 21st century—including in the series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006–07) and Dead to Me (2019– )—along with occasional feature film roles, including one as Santa Claus in the 2003 movie Elf. He voiced the role of Carl Fredricksen, the lead character in the Academy Award-winning animated movie Up (2009), and revisited his role as Santa Claus in the animated remake of Elf, Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas (2014).
Among Asner’s numerous awards and nominations were five Golden Globe Awards (1972, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980), seven Emmys (1971, 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980), and a SAG Life Achievement Award (2001).