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Ed (Edward) Asner (1929-2021) |
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Ed Asner was one of the greatest productive and hard-working actors and producers in TV, cinema and theater of our time. He was an ardent democratic socialist, fighting for the cause of peace, social justice and human rights in the Unites States and all around the world. He died on August 29, 2021, at the age of 91 in Tarzana, California.
He became mostly famous for his role as Lou Grant, in a drama television series, depicting a newspaper editor aired on September 20th, 1977, on CBS. This Series was suddenly cancelled at the height of its success and rating on September 13, 1982. Ed Asner believed that the real reason of its cancellation was his left-wing political views, and his criticism of the US Government’s meddling in Central America, especially in El Salvador.
Ed Asner was born on November 15, in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas to immigrant parents. His Father Morris David Asner was from Vilnius, Lithuania, who ran a second-hand shop and junk yard. His mother Lizzie Seliger was a housewife from Odessa, Ukraine.
Asner studied journalism at the University of Chicago, but left it to work as a taxi driver due to his financial needs, then changed his job to work at the General Motors assembly line. After doing other odd jobs, he got drafted in the military in 1951. He also appeared in different plays that toured US Army bases in Europe. After his military service, he helped the creation of the playwrights Theater Company in Chicago. Then went to New York City to continue his acting carrier. He then left New York City in 1961, and settled in Los Angeles for more opportunities in acting in cinema, theater, and television series.
Overall Asner produced four films, acted in 391 movies, 126 single performances, and narrated in ten films, documentaries, and extensive works for radio, video games, and animated TV series during his carrier from 1947, till 2021.
Between 1981 and 1985, Asner served as the president of the Screen Actor Guild while he was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In 1996, Asner was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, and in 2002 received the Screen Actor Guild’s Life Achievement Award.
With the terrible events of 9/11, 2001, Asner fervently supported Truth Movement and called for a new investigation. He wrote an open letter to the “peace and justice leaders” encouraging them to demand the full truth; among them on the collapse of building 7 at the World Trade Center, which he endorsed the theory that the building was taken down by controlled demolition.
Asner was critical of US Government and its NATO allies on invasion of Yugoslavia, Middle East and Libya. He was a progressive Jew and a strong advocate of Palestinian rights, Palestinian statehood, the “Two State Solution”, and critical of Israel, corruption in Washington, AIPAC, the deceptive “Liberals, Zionists, and Jewish organizations” (Mark Bruzonsky, August 29,2021).
Some of Asner’s famous works, and acts:
Armstrong Circle Theater (TV series), 1957
Omnibus (TV series), 1958
Naked City (TV series), 1961
Outlaws (TV series), 1962
Outlaws (TV series), 1962
Root 66 (TV series), 1962
The Untouchables (TV series), 1962—63.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV series), 1963
Fanfare for a Death Scene (TV movie), 1964
Slattery People, 1964
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV series), 1965
The Rat Patrol (TV series), 1966
El Dorado (Western movie), 1966
The Fugitive (TV series), 1965-67
Iron Horse (TV series), 1967
The Wild Wild West (TV series), 1968
Mission Impossible (TV series), 1969
The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (TV movie), 1970
They Called It Murder (TV movie), 1971
Haunts of the Very Rich (TV movie), 1972
Rhoda (TV series), 1972
Hey, I’m Alive (TV movie), 1975
Rich Man, Poor Man (TV mini series), 1976, One Emmy Award
Roots (TV mini series), 1977, One Emmy Award
The Mary Tyler Moor Show (Lou Grant), 1970-77
Great Performances (Tv series), 1978
The Family Man (TV movie), 1979
A Small Killing (TV movie), 1981
Lou Grant (TV series), 1977-82, Five Emmy Awards
A Case of Libel (TV movie), 1983
A Friendship in Vienna (TV movie), 1988
Good Cops, Bad Cops (TV movie), 1990
JFK (movie), 1991
Elf, 2003
GYPSY (TV movie), 1993
Heads (TV movie), 1994
Gone in the Night (TV movie), 1996
Out of the Woods (TV movie), 2005
Christmas Is Here Again, he voiced Krad (a villain) animated musical comedy film, 2007
Generation Gap (TV movie), 2008
UP (computer animated film, he voiced Carl Fredrickson, Pixar’s Studios), 2009
The Good Wife (TV series), 2009-2016
The Glades (TV series), 2010-2013
To Big to Fail (TV movie), 2011
Working Class (TV series), 2011
Michael, Every Day, a Canadian TV sitcom (CBC), 2011
Home Alone: Holiday Heist (TV movie), 2012
Hearts on Fire (TV movie), 2013
The Game Makers, 2014
High Hopes: The Amityville Horror Murders (Tv movie), 2014
A Man and His Prostate (Tv movie), 2020
All of My Heart (TV movie), 2015
Captain Daddy (Tv movie), 2021
BOOK:
The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs, 2017