Ed Asner

His Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant parents, Lizzie (née Seliger; 1885–1967, from Odesa, Ukraine), a housewife, and Morris David Asner (1879–1957, from Lithuania (Vilna Governorate or Grodno Governorate), 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.

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.

Eddie Asner (November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor.

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.

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 U.S. Army Signal Corps from 1951 to 1953 during the Korean War and appeared in plays that toured Army bases in Europe.

In New York City, Asner played Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum in the Off-Broadway revival of Threepenny Opera, 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.

He made his film debut in 1962, in the Elvis Presley vehicle Kid Galahad.

Before he landed 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, 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 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".

In 1963, Asner appeared as George Johnson on The Virginian in the episode "Echo of Another Day".

Asner acted in numerous films such as the western El Dorado (1966), the crime drama They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), and the cop drama Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981).

In 1968 he was the villain Furman Crotty in the Wild Wild West episode “The Night of the Amnesiac”.

He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama.

Asner was best known for his character Lou Grant, who was first introduced on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.

He also appeared as a veteran streetwise 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.

Asner is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven – five 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 spin-off Lou Grant. His other Emmys were for performances in two miniseries: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), and Roots (1977).

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 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.

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 portrayed Guy Banister in the political thriller JFK (1991), Warren Buffett in the HBO drama film Too Big to Fail (2011), and Santa Claus in several films, including in Elf (2003).

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 the Spider-Man (1994) series, and Uncle Ben in The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008).

Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas.

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.

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.

Asner had an extensive voice acting career.

He voiced Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's animated film Up (2009).