Ed Asner #1
Ed Asner #1
Up, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant
Recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award (2002), Edward Asner has created some of the most memorable characters in television history.
His multiple Emmy-winning Lou Grant on the phenomenon that was THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (1970-1977) proved so rich a character that a series grew up around him. For the Peabody Award-winning THE LOU GRANT SHOW (1977-1982), Asner garnered two more Emmys. He 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. That role earned him an Emmy Award, as did the similarly dark role of Axel Jordache in the mini-series RICH MAN, POOR MAN (1976).
Other television credits include: MEN AT WORK, THE CRAZY ONES, BETTY WHITE'S OFF THEIR ROCKERS, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, HAWAII FIVE-O, HOT IN CLEVELAND, THE MIDDLE, MICHAEL: TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS, THE CLEVELAND SHOW, ROYAL PAINS, WORKING CLASS, THE ELLEN SHOW, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, AND THE X-FILES.
He portrayed Warren Buffet in Curtis Hanson's TOO BIG TO FAIL (2011) and had recurring roles in Aaron Sorkin's STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP (2006-2007) and David E. Kelley's THE PRACTICE (1997-2004). A new generation fell in love with Ed Asner when he voiced the man who went flying in his house in the animated Oscar-winner UP (2009). In 2011, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Banff World Media Festival.
He has won more Emmy Awards for performing than any other male actor (seven, including five for the role of Lou Grant). In 2003, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.
Ed Asner is a member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a free speech organization that is dedicated to protecting comic book creators and retailers from prosecutions based on content. He serves as an advisor to the Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization founded by the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which provides benefits for the children of political activists, and as a board member for the wildlife conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife. He is a grandparent of a child with autism and is deeply involved with the autism nonprofit Autism Speaks. He also serves on the advisory board of a suburban Chicago firm that employs persons with autistic spectrum disorders to test and program software.
Ed Asner on Twitter
Ed Asner at the Internet Movie Database