R.I.P.: Actor Edward Asner, TV's Lou Grant 'Hated Spunk'

Edward Asner (November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021)

Ed Asner, the burly character actor who won seven Emmy Awards — five of them for playing the same character, the gruff but lovable newsman Lou Grant, introduced on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” — and later starred in film hits like “Up” and “Elf” — died on Sunday at his home in Tarzana, Calif. 

He was 91, reports the NY Times.

Asner was 40 when he was approached for the role of Lou Grant, the irascible but idealistic head of the fictional WJM television newsroom in Minneapolis and the boss of Moore’s Mary Richards. His place in television comedy history was secured when, during the first episode, he told Ms. Moore, an eager young job seeker, “You’ve got spunk,” then paused and added, “I hate spunk.”

“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” ran on CBS from 1970 to 1977, and Asner was nominated for the Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy series every year. He won in 1971, 1972 and 1975. He went on to win twice for best lead actor, in 1978 and 1980, for the spinoff “Lou Grant,” making him the first performer to have received Emmys for playing the same character in both a comedy and a drama series.

“Lou Grant” (1977-82) itself was an unusual case, a drama series developed around a sitcom character. In the show, Grant returned to his first love, editing a big-city newspaper, and the scripts tackled serious issues that included, in the first season alone, domestic abuse, gang rivalries, neo-Nazi groups, nursing-home scandals and cults.

In between playing Lou Grant, Asner also won Emmys for his appearances in the 1976 mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man,” as Nick Nolte’s bitter immigrant father, and the groundbreaking, lavishly lauded 1977 mini-series “Roots,” in which he played a slave-ship captain with scruples. He also won five Golden Globes, one for “Rich Man, Poor Man” and two each for the two series in which he played Lou Grant.

In more recent years he had been seen in guest roles on television series like “The Good Wife,” “The Middle,” “Grace and Frankie,” “Hot in Cleveland” and “Cobra Kai,” and as recurring characters on “The Practice” and “ER.” In television movies, he played the billionaire Warren Buffett (in “Too Big to Fail,” 2011) and Pope John XXIII (in a 2002 movie by that name).

Edward David Asner was born on Nov. 15, 1929, in Kansas City, Mo., and grew up in Kansas City, Kan. He was the youngest of five children of Orthodox Jewish immigrants, Morris David Asner, a junkyard owner from Poland, and Lizzie (Seliger) Asner, from Russia.