Edward Asner

Eddie Asner, commonly known as Edward "Ed" Asner, was an American actor, political activist, and former president of the SAG. He was perhaps best known for his role as Lou Grant in the CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its dramatic spin-off series of the same name, both shows for which he won an Emmy Award for his performances. He also voiced Hoggish Greedly in Captain Planet and the Planeteers and portrayed Santa Claus in Jon Favreau's 2003 Christmas comedy film Elf.

For Disney, he voiced Carl Fredricksen in the 2009 Disney/Pixar animated feature film Up and the 2021 Disney+ original series Dug Days, one of his final roles and first released posthumously. He also played Hank Cooper in Gus, Horace McNickle in The Wonderful World of Disney episode "The Christmas Star", Grumps in Bonkers, Georgie's "evil voice" in Dinosaurs, Hudson, Jack Danforth, and Burbank in Gargoyles, Thaddeus T. Third V in Recess, Mentor in the Hercules TV series, The Fixer in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Napoleon in W.I.T.C.H., Mr. Big in Teamo Supremo, and Brother Claude in Muppets Haunted Mansion, Additionally, he made a guest appearance in the 1984 TV special Donald Duck's 50th Birthday, played Coach Billy Hicks in Perfect Game, voiced Jabba the Hutt in the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi audio drama, and Grandpa Heffley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, his last animated role, with the film being dedicated in memory of him.

Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Kansas. His Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant parents, Lizzie, a housewife, and Morris David Asner, from Lithuania, ran a secondhand shop and junkyard. His four older siblings were Ben J. Asner, Eve Asner, Esther Edelman, and Labe Asner. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family and given the Hebrew name Yitzhak.

Asner attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Chicago. He studied journalism in Chicago until a professor advised him there was little money to be made in the profession. He had been working in a steel mill, but he quickly switched to drama, debuting as the martyred Thomas Becket in a campus production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. He eventually dropped out of school, going to work as a taxi driver, worked on the assembly line for General Motors, and other odd jobs before being drafted in the military in 1951.