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Ed Asner, Star Of ‘Lou Grant’ Dead At 91

By Modupeoluwa Adekanye

30 August 2021   |   11:48 am

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Ed Asner, the star of the television series Lou Grant and The Mary Tyler Moore Show who moonlighted as a political activist against US President Ronald Reagan’s policy on Central America, has died at the age of 91. A tweet from Asner’s official Twitter account said: We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch…

Ed Asner, Star Of ‘Lou Grant’ Dead At 91

Ed Asner, the star of the television series Lou Grant and The Mary Tyler Moore Show who moonlighted as a political activist against US President Ronald Reagan’s policy on Central America, has died at the age of 91.

A tweet from Asner’s official Twitter account said:

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 continued to appear in TV shows, such as The Good Wife and Bones, even in the last years of his life. In 2019, Asner played a retiree who gave life advice in the Netflix show Dead to Me, which stars Christina Applegate.

A new generation of moviegoers was introduced to Asner as the voice of curmudgeon Carl Fredricksen in the Pixar-Disney 2009 animated hit Up according to The Spring Morning Herald.

Asner won more Emmy awards, seven in total, than any other man, mainly for his supporting role on the comedy series The Mary Tyler Moore Show and the lead as a newspaper editor in the drama Lou Grant.

He was also the only person to win Emmys for playing the same character – Lou Grant was a spinoff from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in both a comedy and a drama. He won the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

He had more than 300 acting credits and remained active throughout his 70s and 80s in a variety of film and TV roles.

In 2003, he played Santa Claus in Will Ferrell’s hit film Elf.

He was John Goodman’s father in the short-lived 2004 CBS comedy Centre Of The Universe and the voice of the elderly hero in the hit 2009 Pixar release, Up.

More recently, he was in such TV series as Forgive Me and Dead to Me. Nonetheless, Asner said in 2009 that interesting roles were hard to come by. He said:

I never get enough work. It’s the history of my career. There just isn’t anything to turn down, let me put it that way. I’d say most people are probably in that same boat, old people, and it’s a shame.