Ed Asner

Eddie Asner (; November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor. He is most notable for portraying Lou Grant on the sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977) and drama Lou Grant (1977–1982), making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama.

Asner won seven Primetime Emmy Awards, the most of any male performer. Five were for portraying Lou Grant: three as Supporting Actor in a Comedy Television Series on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and two as Lead Actor in a Dramatic Television Series on the spin-off Lou Grant. The other two were for performances in the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and Roots (1977).

Asner acted in the films El Dorado (1966), They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), JFK (1991), and Too Big to Fail (2011). He also played Santa Claus in several films and voiced Carl Fredricksen in the Pixar animated film Up (2009).

Asner starred in the ABC sitcom Thunder Alley (1994–1995), and Michael: Every Day (2011–2017). He also acted extensively in numerous television series such as The Practice, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Good Wife, Cobra Kai, Briarpatch, Working Class, and Dead to Me. He also voiced J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994–1998), Hudson in Gargoyles (1994–1997), and Ed Wuncler Sr. in The Boondocks (2005–2014).

Early life and education

Asner was born November 15, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. His parents, Lizzie (née Seliger; 1885–1967), a housewife, and Morris David Asner (1879–1957), were Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Ukraine who ran a second-hand shop and junkyard. His four older siblings were Ben J. Asner (1915–1986), Eve Asner (1916–2014), Esther Edelman (1919–2014) and Labe Asner (1923–2017). He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family and given the Hebrew name Yitzhak (יִצְחָק).

Asner attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Chicago. He studied journalism in Chicago until a professor advised him there was little money to be made in the profession. He had been working in a steel mill, but he quickly switched to drama, debuting as the martyred Thomas Becket in a campus production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He eventually dropped out of school, going to work as a taxi driver, worked on the assembly line for General Motors, and other odd jobs before being drafted in the military in 1951.

Asner served with the United States Army Signal Corps from 1951 to 1953 during the Korean War and appeared in plays that toured army bases in Europe.

Career

1955–1969: Early work and television roles

Following his military service, Asner helped found the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago, but left for New York City before members of that company regrouped as the Compass Players in the mid-1950s. He later made frequent guest appearances with the successor to Compass, The Second City. In New York City, Off-Broadway roles included Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum in the revival of Threepenny Opera and in Otway's Venice Preserv'd in late 1955. Asner scored his first Broadway role in Face of a Hero alongside Jack Lemmon in 1960, and began to make inroads as a television actor, having made his TV debut in 1957 on Studio One. In two notable performances on television, Asner played Detective Sgt. Thomas Siroleo in the 1963 episode of The Outer Limits titled "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" and the reprehensible ex-premier Brynov in the 1965 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "The Exile". He made his film debut in 1962, in the Elvis Presley vehicle Kid Galahad.

Before landing his role with Mary Tyler Moore, Asner guest-starred in television series including four episodes of The Untouchables starring Robert Stack, the syndicated crime drama Decoy, starring Beverly Garland, two episodes of Naked City in 1961, and Route 66 in 1962 (the episode titled "Welcome to the Wedding") as Custody Officer Lincoln Peers. He was cast on Jack Lord's ABC drama series Stoney Burke and in the series finale of CBS's The Reporter, starring Harry Guardino. He also appeared on Mr. Novak, Ben Casey, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, and The Invaders. In 1963, Asner appeared as George Johnson on The Virginian in the episode "Echo of Another Day". In 1968 he was the villain Furman Crotty in the Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Amnesiac".

1970–1982: The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant

Asner was best known for his character Lou Grant, who was first introduced on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. In 1977, after Moore's series ended, Asner's character was given his own show, Lou Grant (1977–82). In contrast to the Mary Tyler Moore series, a thirty-minute award-winning comedy about television journalism, the Lou Grant series was an hour-long award-winning drama about newspaper journalism. For his role as Grant, Asner was one of only two actors to win an Emmy Award for a sitcom and a drama for the same role (the second being Uzo Aduba). In addition he made appearances as Lou Grant on two other shows: Rhoda and Roseanne. Other television series starring Asner in regular roles include Thunder Alley, The Bronx Zoo, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He also starred in one episode of the Western series Dead Man's Gun (1997), as well as portraying art smuggler August March in an episode of the original Hawaii Five-O (1975) and reprised the role in the Hawaii Five-0 (2012) remake. He also appeared as a streetwise veteran police officer in an episode of the 1973 version of Police Story.

Asner was acclaimed for his role in the ABC miniseries Roots, as Captain Davies, the morally conflicted captain of the Lord Ligonier, the slave ship that brought Kunta Kinte to America. The role earned Asner an Emmy Award, as did the similarly dark role of Axel Jordache in the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). In contrast, he played a former pontiff in the lead role of Papa Giovanni: Ioannes XXIII (Pope John XXIII 2002), an Italian television film for RAI.

1983–2009: Established actor and voice work

Asner had an extensive voice acting career. In 1987, he played the eponymous character, George F. Babbitt, in the L.A. Classic Theatre Works' radio theater production of Sinclair Lewis' novel Babbitt. Asner won one Audie Award and was nominated for two Grammy Awards and an additional Audie for his audiobook work. He also provided the voices for Joshua on Joshua and the Battle of Jericho (1986) for Hanna-Barbera, J. Jonah Jameson on the 1990s animated television series Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994–98); Hoggish Greedly on Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–95); Hudson on Gargoyles (1994–96); Jabba the Hutt on the radio version of Star Wars; Master Vrook from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel; Roland Daggett on Batman: The Animated Series (1992–94); Cosgrove on Freakazoid!; Ed Wuncler on The Boondocks (2005–2014); and Granny Goodness in various DC Comics animated series. He also voiced Napoleon, Cornelia's younger sister's cat in the Disney show W.I.T.C.H. (2004–06), and Kid Potato, the Butcher's dad in the PBS Kids hit show WordGirl (2007–2015). He was even nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program but lost to Eartha Kitt for Nick Jr.'s Wonder Pets!. Asner provided the voice of famed American orator Edward Everett in the 2017 documentary film The Gettysburg Address.

Asner provided the voice of the main protagonist Carl Fredricksen in the Academy Award-winning Pixar film Up (2009). He received critical acclaim for the role, with one critic going so far as to suggest "They should create a new category for this year's Academy Award for Best Vocal Acting in an Animated Film and name Asner as the first recipient." He appeared in the mid- to late-2000s decade in a recurring segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, entitled "Does This Impress Ed Asner?"

Asner appeared in several Hallmark movies, and he was nominated for an Emmy® for the 2006 Hallmark Original Movie The Christmas Card.

In 2001, Asner was the recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Asner won more Emmy Awards for performing than any other male actor (seven, including five for the role of Lou Grant). In 1996, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.