Ed Asner is one of U.S. television’s most acclaimed and most controversial actors. Through the miracle of the spin-off, Asner became the only actor to win Emmy Awards for playing the same character in both a comedy and dramatic series. A former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Asner’s mix of politics and acting have not always set well with network executives, corporate sponsors, or the viewing public.

While Asner is best known for his Mary Tyler Moore Show supporting character Lou Grant, the role was a departure from his dramatic roots. Asner began his professional career with the Chicago Playwright’s Theatre Company, graduating later to off-Broadway productions. Asner came to Hollywood in 1961, where he received a steady stream of roles, including his first episodic work in the series Slattery’s People, which ran on CBS in the 1964–65 season.

Asner’s big break came when he was spotted by MTM Enterprises cofounder Grant Tinker in an ABC made-for-TV movie; Tinker asked Mary Tyler Moore Show creators James L. Brooks and Alan Burns to consider Asner for the role of Mary Richards’s boss, the gruff-yet-lovable Lou Grant. According to Brooks, Asner gave a terrible first reading; however, Brooks agreed that Asner had a special quality that made him the clear choice for the role.

Although Asner had previously shied away from comedy, he felt that The Mary Tyler Moore Show script was the finest piece of writing he had ever seen. The series paid off for Asner, MTM, and the audience. Lou Grant not only became one of the most successful supporting roles in a comedy series but the prototype for such characters as Taxi’s Louie DePalma, whose comedy depends on superb timing in the delivery of wellcrafted, trick-expectancy dialogue.

After The Mary Tyler Moore Show voluntarily retired, Asner became part of another historic TV event when he starred as Captain Davies, a brutal slave trader, in the epic miniseries Roots. Meanwhile, James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, and M*A*S*H executive producer Gene Reynolds began adapting the Lou Grant character to become the lead dramatic role in a CBS series, in which Asner would star as the crusading editor of the fictional L.A. Tribune. Despite a shaky start, the beloved comic character gradually became accepted in this new venue. More than just moving to the big city and losing his sense of humor, however, Asner’s more serious Grant become a fictional spokesperson for issues ignored by other mass media venues, including the mainstream press. At the same time, the dramatic narrative offered opportunities for exploring the character more deeply, revealing his strained domestic relationships and his own complex emotional struggles. These revelations, in turn, complicated the professional persona of Lou Grant, the editor.

Like his character, Asner could be outspoken. His first brush with politics occurred when he became a labor rights activist during SAG’s 1980 strike, which delayed the 1980–81 TV season. Asner’s work on behalf of the actors helped make him a viable candidate for the SAG presidency, to which he was elected in 1981. His political agenda widened, and, in the face of a growing right-wing national sentiment highlighted by the 1980 presidential election of Ronald Reagan, Asner became increasingly vocal against U.S. public policy, including that affecting U.S. involvement in Latin America.

Through Lou Grant, Asner’s own popularity was growing, leading to appearances in the 1980 film Fort Apache, The Bronx, and the 1981 TV movie A Small Killing. This level of success was soon to crumble, however, when Asner took part in a fund-raiser to send medical aid to El Salvadoran rebels who were fighting against the Reagan-supported regime. Most disturbing to conservative minds was Asner’s direct-mail letter on behalf of the aid organization, which began with, “My name is Ed Asner. I play Lou Grant on television.” Conservative SAG members, including Charlton Heston, rose up in arms over Asner using his character to support his own political agenda (of course, one can argue that Heston is so closely associated with his own on-screen persona that his links to conservative causes are just as manipulative).

In his essay on MTM drama, Paul Kerr quoted Allan Burns’s assessment of the ensuing anti-Asner onslaught: “I’ve never seen anybody transformed so quickly from being everyone’s favorite uncle to a communist swine.” Within weeks, Lou Grant was canceled. While CBS maintains the cancellation was based on dwindling ratings, Asner, and others on the Lou Grant production team, feel this was swift punishment for Asner’s political beliefs. Interestingly enough, Howard Hesseman, star of WKRP in Cincinnati, was also involved with the Asner-supported El Salvador rally; WKRP and Lou Grant were canceled the same day.

It was not until 1985—the year he resigned as SAG president—that Asner obtained another episodic role on TV, this time playing the grouchy co-owner of an L.A. garment factory in the ABC series Off the Rack. After 12 years of quality scripts from his MTM days, Asner’s Off the Rack experience can be viewed as paying penance for his perceived crimes. In 1988, however, he was back in a more serious role, in the short-lived NBC series The Bronx Zoo, which focused on the problems faced by an inner-city high school. In a departure from his own personal views, Asner later landed the role of a conservative ex-cop who often confronted the liberal heroine in The Trials of Rosie O’Neil, which starred Sharon Gless as a crusading public defender. Asner has continued to be active as an actor, appearing in made-for-television and feature films and various sitcoms. None of these roles, however, have been as weighty or as important as Lou Grant.