Farewell to Ed, kosher king of prime time
AMERICAN JEWISH television star Ed Asner has died, aged 91.
A mainstay of prime-time in the 70s and 80s, he won a record seven Emmys.
He became a household name first in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and then fronting the spin-off series, Lou Grant.
Asner grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home in Kansas City, Missouri the child of immigrants from Lithuania.
Announcing his death, his family wrote on Twitter: “We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully. Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head — goodnight dad. We love you.”
Asner kept working right up into his nineties. In 2019 he narated the animated children’s Holocaust education tale The Tattooed Torah.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran from 1970 to 1977, Asner had played the title character’s irascible TV station boss. It was here he earned a reputation for comic ability. He said: “I didn’t really put my toe into the water of comedy until I went up to read for ‘Mary Tyler Moore.’ I was afraid of it. Not that I couldn’t do an initial spark of humor but I didn’t know how to maintain it.”
In the spin-off Lou Grant, running from 1977 to 1982, his character became a newspaper editor for a show that confronted serious issues.
Asner’s other TV work included parts in Roots and Rich Man, Poor Man. His later roles included one in the 2003 comedy with Will Ferrell, Elf. In 2009’s Up — which won an Oscar for best animated film — he voiced the main character, a widower who ties balloons to his house and rises .
Awy from the screen he had a high profile for his left-wing activism and was president of the Screen Actors Guild.