Ed Asner
THE face of Ed Asner was as regular a sight on the TV screens of my youth as the test card. His performance as Lou Grant, the grouchy but decent editor of the Los Angeles Tribune in the American television series of the same name that ran between 1977 and 1982 made sure of that.
In many ways, it was the turn that came to define the career of the man, who sadly left us this week at the age of 91. For TV addicts of a certain age, Ed was Lou and that was that.
I met him when he took a rare promotional jaunt to Belfast a few years back and it was all I could do not to refer to him as Lou for the duration of our brief chat.
Of course, for other generations of viewers Ed Asner was something else altogether. A prolific actor both before Lou Grant and long after, he graced all kinds of memorable productions on both big screen and small. The world-weary, gravelly tone of his unforgettable voice enhanced comedies and dramas galore.
His chunky frame and everyman demeanour saw him first become a familiar face on American TV screens in shows such as The Fugitive and Ironside. Once Lou Grant had made him a standalone star, he landed memorable roles in films as diverse as Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981) and Sydney Lumet's Daniel (1983).
That well established TV persona as a grizzled old guy with a cantankerous disposition allowed him to provide the voice for many animated adventures from Batman to The Cleveland Show. For millions of modern movie lovers, he will forever be the voice of lovable old Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's game-changing animation Up.
For me though, it's that famous performance as the haggard but human newspaper editor that continues to define the magic of the man.
The character had first appeared in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran for seven successful seasons on US television and won the Missouri-born actor a trio of Emmys for his trouble. It was Asner who developed the role from a small comic turn to something more serious and fully formed.
In its prime, the Lou Grant series tackled all kinds of thorny issues, from homophobia to institutionalised racism and Native American rights. The kind of topics mainstream US television would still get antsy about today, in fact.
A lifelong member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Asner remained an important dissenting voice throughout his career both in front of the camera and in his role as president of the Screen Actors Guild.
An outspoken activist against US support for the junta in El Salvador and white collar corruption in his homeland, his deeply held political sympathies in the intensely conservative world of the American mass media no doubt curtailed him from bagging the really big movie roles his talents clearly deserved, but despite that he leaves us with some truly magical work – work that still resonates and inspires today.
That's a kind of victory, if you ask me.
