Today we wish a very HAPPY 84th BIRTHDAY to Mr. Ed Asner (born - TopicsExpress



          

Today we wish a very HAPPY 84th BIRTHDAY to Mr. Ed Asner (born November 15, 1929). Mr. Asner is a film, television, stage, and voice actor and a former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is primarily known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same leading character in both a comedy and a drama. In 2003, Mr. Asner portrayed Santa Claus in the hit film, Elf starring Will Ferrell and Bob Newhart. In 2009, he starred as the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Pixars award-winning animated film Up. In early 2011, Mr. Asner returned to television as butcher Hank Greziak in Working Class, the first original sitcom on cable channel CMT. He appeared in a Canadian television series Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, on CBC Television and has appeared in the 2013 summer series The Glades. He most recently guest starred in the new Robin Williams TV sitcom, The Crazy Ones, also on CBS Television. Mr. Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri of Russian descent. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. He attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. He worked on the assembly line for General Motors. Mr. Asner served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and appeared in plays that toured Army camps in Europe. Following his military service, Mr. Asner joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago, but left for New York City before members of that company regrouped as the Compass Players in the mid-1950s. He later made guest appearances with the successor to Compass, The Second City, and is considered part of The Second City extended family. In New York City, Mr. Asner played Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum in the Broadway revival of Threepenny Opera, and began to make inroads as a television actor. Before he landed his role with Mary Tyler Moore, Mr. Asner guest-starred in such television series as the syndicated crime drama Decoy, starring Beverly Garland, and the NBC western series The Outlaws. He was also cast on Jack Lords ABC drama series Stoney Burke and in the series finale of CBSs The Reporter, starring Harry Guardino. He also appeared on Mr. Novak, Mission: Impossible, The Invaders and Gunsmoke. Mr. Asner is best known for his character Lou Grant, who was first introduced on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. In 1977, after the series ended, Mr. Asners character was given his own show, Lou Grant (1977–82). In contrast to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, a thirty-minute comedy, the Lou Grant show was an hour-long award-winning drama about journalism. (For his role as Lou Grant, Mr. Asner is the only actor to win an Emmy Award for a sitcom and a drama for the same role.) Other television series starring Mr. Asner in regular roles include Thunder Alley, The Bronx Zoo, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He also portrayed art smuggler August March in an episode of the original Hawaii Five-O (1975) and reprised the role in the Hawaii Five-0 (2012) remake. Mr. Asner was acclaimed for his role in the ABC miniseries Roots (1977), as Captain Davies, the morally conflicted captain of the Lord Ligonier, the slave ship that brought Kunta Kinte to America. That role earned Mr. Asner an Emmy Award, as did the similarly dark role of Axel Jordache in the mini-series Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). In contrast, he played a former Pontiff in the lead role of Papa Giovanni: Ioannes XXIII (Pope John XXIII (2002), an Italian miniseries. Mr. Asner has also had an extensive voice acting career. He provided the voices for Joshua on Joshua and the Battle of Jericho (1986) for Hanna-Barbera, J. Jonah Jameson on the 1990s animated television series Spider-Man (1994–98); Hoggish Greedly on Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–95); Hudson on Gargoyles (1994–96); Jabba the Hutt on the radio version of Star Wars; Master Vrook from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel; Roland Daggett on Batman: The Animated Series (1992–94); Cosgrove on Freakazoid!; Ed Wuncler on The Boondocks (2005–10); and Granny Goodness in various DC Comics animated series. Mr. Asner provided the voice of Carl Fredricksen in the Academy Award-winning Pixar film Up (2009). He received great critical praise for the role, with one critic going so far as to suggest They should create a new category for this years Academy Award for Best Vocal Acting in an Animated Film and name Asner as the first recipient. He has appeared in a recurring segment, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, entitled Does This Impress Ed Asner? In 2001, Mr. Asner was the recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Mr. Asner has won more Emmy Awards for performing than any other male actor (seven, including five for the role of Lou Grant). In 2003, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. In July 2010, Ed Asner completed recording sessions as narrator for Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders; a documentary on the 1974 DeFeo murders in Amityville, New York. Also in 2010, Mr. Asner played the title role in FDR, a stage production about the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He has subsequently continued to tour the play throughout the country. In January 2011, Mr. Asner took a supporting role on CMTs first original sitcom Working Class. He made an appearance in the independent comedy feature Not Another B Movie, and had a small but pivotal role as billionaire Warren Buffett in HBOs 2011 economy drama Too Big to Fail. Mr. Asner has also provided voice-over narration for many documentaries and films of social activism. Ed Asner is a member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a free speech organization that is dedicated to protecting comic book creators and retailers from prosecutions based on content. He serves as an advisor to the Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization founded by the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg which provides benefits for the children of political activists, and as a board member for the wildlife conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife. Mr. Asner is a parent and a grandparent of a child with autism and is deeply involved with the autism nonprofit Autism Speaks. He also serves on the advisory board of a suburban Chicago firm that employs persons with autistic spectrum disorders to test and program software. Mr. Asner is also a member of the Honorary Board of Directors for the homeless respite service center Fresh Start WC in Walnut Creek, California. On March 12, 2013, while performing in FDR at the Marquette Pavilion in Gary, Indiana, Mr. Asner began having trouble with his lines, and appeared to be disoriented, he was reportedly walked off stage by emergency medical personnel about 15 minutes into the performance. He was subsequently hospitalized in a Chicago-area hospital for exhaustion, and was released the following day. Commenting on his Twitter page, Mr. Asner said, Reports of my imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. They tell me I am suffering from exhaustion. Thanks for the good wishes! I am very pleased to say that Mr. Asners health and strength improved and he once again hit the road several months later for several speaking engagements and appearances, including coming to Baltimore for the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in September of 2013. It was there that I had the immense pleasure to meet and talk with with Mr. Asner at length. Mr. Asner seems to like to come off as cantankerous and grumpy, but I as we talked, I found him to be playful, funny, intelligent and warm. Happy Birthday, Mr. Asner!! *pictured: The cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970 - 1977) and The Ultimate Abbott and Costello Tribute Show (Scoop, Bud and Lou) Meet Mr. Ed Asner (Sept. 20, 2013)
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:03:12 +0000

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