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Edward Asner (born November 15, 1929) is a film and television actor and former President of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant. Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri, across the river from the Kansas City, Kansas home of his parents, Lizzie (née Seliger), a housewife, and Morris David Asner, who ran a second-hand shop. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. Asner attended historic Wyandotte High School and spent many hours at the Granada movie theater in Kansas City, Kansas. Asner attended the University of Chicago and he served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Europe. Before he landed his role with Mary Tyler Moore, Asner guest starred in such television series as NBC`s The Outlaws (1962) and in the series finale of CBS`s The Reporter in the episode entitled "Vote for Murder." The Reporter focuses on a fictitious New York Globe newspaper as seen through the lives of two of its employees, played by Harry Guardino and Gary Merrill.
Asner is best best known for his character Lou Grant, who was first introduced on the The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. In 1977, after the end of the Mary Tyler Moore show, Asner`s character was given his own show, Lou Grant, which ran from 1977-1982. In contrast to the Mary Tyler Moore show, which was a thirty minute comedy, the Lou Grant show was an hour long award-winning drama about journalism. Asner is also known for his acclaimed role as Captain Davies, from the mini-series Roots, the man who kidnapped Kunta Kinte and sold him into slavery, a role that earned Asner an Emmy Award. While Asner`s character in Roots was highly developed, full of metaphors on tortured ethics and the morality of slavery, biographer Alex Haley would later admit he had no idea who the actual Captain was who had commanded the historic slaver which had kidnapped his ancestor.
A prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Asner served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, in which capacity he opposed US policy in Central America. He played a prominent role in the 1980 SAG strike. He has also been active in a variety of other causes, such as the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. His political position may also have motivated him to play the voice of the pig-like villain Hoggish Greedly on the pro-environmental animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers and the voice for the sinister Ed Wuncler in The Boondocks.
Nancy Sykes was his wife from 1959-1988. Together they have three children: twins Matthew and Liza, and Kate. In 1987 he had a son named Charles with Carol Jean Vogelman. Asner is a parent of a child with autism. Engaged to producer Cindy Gilmore in 1991, they married on 2 August 1998. Gilmore filed for divorce on November 7, 2007. Model and television personality Jules Asner is his former daughter-in-law. His nephew, Gavin Newsom, was elected mayor of San Francisco in 2003.
Biography Credit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Asner
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(on making the transition from the comedy "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) to its dramatic spin-off series "Lou Grant" (1977)] We were really worried about changing over from a three-camera half-hour comedy to a one-camera full-hour drama. The audience wasn`t ready for the switch - even CBS billed us in their promos as a comedy. In fact, the whole thing was impossible. But we didn`t know that.
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