LAUGHTER THE BEST MEDICINE
A healthy one-man show from Asner
At 88 years old, Ed Asner is still a real trouper.
The award-winning actor knows the show — or in this case the interview — must go on.
“I’m not fine,” said Asner when reached on the phone in Los Angeles recently and asked how he was doing. “I fell out of my bed last night. When I’m finished with you I am going to emergency and get my head examined.”
Of course I suggested the interview be suspended — a rain check, perhaps?
“Nah. I’m gonna live,” said Asner in the gruff, no-BS voice that has served the Kansas City native so well over the course of his almost 70-year acting career.
A career that, it should be noted, includes 20 Emmy Award nominations, with seven wins. He is the only actor to win both a comedy and a drama Emmy for the same role — newsman Lou Grant, who first appeared on The Mary Tyler Moore Show sitcom before moving onto the eponymously named evening drama.
Asner, who started out in theatre, is still treading the boards and will be doing so at New Westminster’s Anvil Centre Theatre on April 27 and 28 with the one-man show A Man and His Prostate.
Written by Asner’s friend and former Mary Tyler Moore Show writer Ed Weinberger, the 90-minute show is a public service announcement of sorts. Based on Weinberger’s own story, the medical emergency at the centre of this work opens the door to a lot of circumspection and comedy.
“I read it and thought it was great. There was no question I wanted to do it,” Asner said when asked about the pitch for a prostate play.
The well-reviewed play is a comedy and the cliche of laughter being the best medicine really does apply here, Asner said.
“If (the audience) is relaxed I think there is a better chance for the message to penetrate,” he said. “The laughter is really key. People are getting entertained, then we give them the death message right in the middle. They can’t avoid hearing it.”
As for the message, well, remember that gruff no-BS voice? Imagine it while you read the next sentence.
“The message is get yourself examined. Don’t be a schmuck,” Asner said.
The play has toured a fair bit in the last few months. And, let’s face it, 90 minutes alone onstage is physically punishing work for a person half Asner’s age. But Asner said he loves it, he needs it and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I am energized,” said Asner, adding the key to longevity is being active and enjoying what you do.
It must also help that what you do has endeared you to generations of people.
“I am truly lucky,” said Asner. Asner began his career in the early 1950s. He did theatre and TV, and had a couple of small roles in a pair of Elvis movies. In the 1969 film Change of Habit he worked alongside Mary Tyler Moore.
A year later, The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted on CBS, and Asner’s life and TV was changed forever.
The show created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns ran for seven seasons and spun off an amazing three full series (Rhoda, Phyllis and Lou Grant).
Asner doesn’t flinch when asked about the success of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and how beloved the ensemble cast was to millions of TV viewers, as well as inspirational to future TV writers.
“Automatically, genuinely funny — not forced,” said Asner about the comedy set in the Minneapolis TV station WJM. “A look was enough at times.”
The series with Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) at it’s centre inspired legions of young girls to become career women and to understand that you did not need a husband to be considered a success; what you needed was talent, determination and spunk.
That last one was made famous in the pilot episode when Lou Grant tells Richards that she has spunk and that he “hates spunk.”
That memorable and oft quoted line does not have a fan in the man who delivered it.
“I hate that line, Jesus I hate it, and yet it is the one everybody quotes to me,” said Asner. “I think spunk is wonderful. I love spunk. I thank God I was able to say it convincingly at the time.”
Outside of The Mary Tyler Moore Show universe, Asner scored Emmys for his supporting actor roles in the hit miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots.
For Lou Grant, the accolades continued until the show was cancelled after five successful seasons. The network blamed low ratings that Asner believed had to do with CBS getting cold feet over his ever-increasing political outspokenness and affiliations.
The former Screen Actor’s Guild president is still very active and involved with many organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Survivor Mitzvah Project.
“I had to justify my good fortune,” said Asner when asked about his philanthropic and activist work.
Years after he played a father figure to Mary Richards, Asner returned and did the same for a couple of characters in two huge Hollywood films. In 2003, he was Santa to Will Ferrell’s Buddy in Elf, and his Carl Fredricksen melted the hearts of kids of all sizes in Pixar’s animated 2009 movie Up.
“I didn’t know it was going to be big,” said Asner when asked about Up, an Academy Awards’ best picture nominee.
“I thought, how wonderful. It is a beautiful story and I am so glad that it has fared so well and become so meaningful to so many people.”