Remembering Ed Asner
I regret to confirm the death of Emmy-winner Ed Asner, former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He died Sunday, August 29, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA . His family reported his death on Twitter at the age of 91. He was born Yitzhak Edward Asner November 15, 1929 in Kansas City, Missouri. He passed away peacefully at home of natural causes, surrounded by his family.
https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1432036187703816194
Naturally, in a career stretching from 1957 to 2021, his over 400 roles included several science fiction and fantasy parts. He voiced Roland Dagget in five episodes of Batman: the Animated Series and Granny Goodness in four episodes of Superman: the Animated Series. In the ’90s, he was perfectly cast as the voice of the curmudgeonly J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: the Animated Series. For Disney, he voiced Hudson in Gargoyles and Carl Fredricksen in Up. Asner played Santa Claus seven separate times. He was best known, of course, for playing journalist Lou Grant. Ed Asner was the first actor to win Emmys for playing the same character in both a comedy {The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970)} and a drama {(Lou Grant (1977)}. Only actress Uzo Aduba has done likewise, for her role in Orange is the New Black. Asner was nominated twenty times for an Emmy Award, and won an impressive seven times.
Awards
Awards Asner was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1992. He was nominated for twenty Emmy Awards, but only won seven. Ed Asner was nominated for eleven Golden Globe Awards and won five. He won two for playing Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, two for playing Lou Grant in Lou Grant, and one for playing Axel Jordache in Rich Man, Poor Man. Ed Asner won the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2002. Asner won the 2007 CAMIE (Character And Morality In Entertainment) Award for his role in The Christmas Card.
Science Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Roles
SFFH: Asner had two roles in the Star Wars universe, Jabba the Hutt in the radio adaptation, and Master Vrook in the animated SW: Knights of the Old Republic. He starred as Bob O’Hara in the heartbreaking supernatural romance O’Hara’s Wife.
Asner was one of the few non-Star Trek veterans to have a major role on Disney’s Gargoyles. He voiced Hudson, the wise elder who had led the gargoyle clan before turning over the responsibility to Goliath. Asner played Dr. Arden in M.O.M. Mothers of Monsters. He played Saul Wiener in the horror film Daughter of the Mind. Asner’s many TV roles included guest appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Outer Limits, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Invaders, Highway to Heaven, and X-Files. Asner voiced Scalawag the Squirrel in the animated movie Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, whiched starred The Orville’s Scott Grimes as Pinocchio.
Movie critic Keith Cohen, when reviewing Disney’s Up suggested “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.”
Other Roles
Other Notable Roles — Ed Asner had over 400 roles on TV and movies, as well as appearing on stage and in radio. His most famous role was as Lou Grant, head of the newsroom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and then the same character, who left TV journalism and went back to working on a newspaper in the spin-off Lou Grant. He also won an Emmy for playing Captain Thomas Davieses in Roots, captain of the slave ship that carried Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) and hundreds of others to North America. He received Emmy nominations for voicing Kid Potato on PBS’ Word Girl, Hoggish Greedly on Captain Planet, J. Jonah Jamison on Spider-Man, and Santa Claus in A Storybots Christmas. In 2015 Ed Asner was inaugurated into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame. Asner said playing Santa in Elf was one of his favorite roles.
Asner starred in the short-lived sit-com Thunder Alley, with Supernatural’s Jim Beaver as his sidekick. He played the principal of a Sweathogs-type school in The Bronx Zoo. Asner had a regular role on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, as the head of the media conglomerate that owned the network. In Cobra Kai, he played Sid Weinberg.
SAG President Ed Asner was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1981 to 1985. Asner was elected to the position twice. He was a lifelong activist for liberal causes. Some Hollywood executives disapproved of his outspoken advocacy of left-leaning causes.
Stage Roles: In the army, he “appeared in plays that toured Army camps in Europe,” raising the morale of his fellow soldiers. In Chicago, after his military duty, Asner 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).” [Encyclopedia Britannica] In 1961, he moved from New York to California, where he concentrated on television work. “Beginning in 2016, Asner took on the role of Holocaust survivor Milton Salesman in Jeff Cohen’s acclaimed play The Soap Myth in a reading at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Theatre in New York City. He subsequently toured for the next three years in “concert readings” of the play in more than a dozen cities across the United States” [Wikipedia]
Personal: From 1951 to 1953, Ed Asner served in the US Army Signal Corps. Asner was married twice, to Nancy Lou Sykes from 1959 to 1988, and to Cindy Gilmore, from 1998 to 2015. Both marriages ended in divorce. Asner and his first wife had three children, Matthew, Liza, and Kate. Asner’s daughter Kate once played a nurse in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also appeared in Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. He also had a son, Charles, with Carol Jean Vogelman. He is survived by his grandchildren, Jake, Will, Avivah, Max, Wolf, Eddy, Gabriel, Charlotte, Grant and Helena. One of his children and at least one of his grandchildren were diagnosed with autism. Asner was heavily involved with the controversial Autism Speaks.
Eulogy
James Morrison (Colonel T. C. McQueen on Space: Above and Beyond) offered a brief eulogy on his Facebook page:
“RIP Ed Asner, Good man, honored to know you.”
Morrison said more in nine words than I did in a thousand words. But he actually knew Ed Asner, and I’m just an underpaid part-time entertainment journalist who can’t type fast enough to make deadline.
