Entertainment
Ed Asner: Becoming Lou Grant
Ed Asner made TV history as Lou Grant—first on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then in the rare sitcom-to-drama spinoff that carried his name.
What to know
- Lou Grant first appeared on *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* (CBS, 1970–1977).
- Asner and Valerie Harper both won supporting Emmys for comedy in 1971.
- The character moved from sitcom to the hour-long drama *Lou Grant*.
Ed Asner did not just play a gruff boss. He made television history with one character in two different forms.
On *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* (CBS, 1970–1977), Asner played Lou Grant, the newsroom chief at a fictional Minneapolis station — tough, but capable of kindness. In 1971, Asner and castmate Valerie Harper both won Emmy Awards for supporting roles in a comedy.
Then came the rarer move. Lou Grant left the half-hour, three-camera sitcom for an hour-long, single-camera drama, simply titled *Lou Grant*, which sent the character to a Los Angeles newspaper. The Television Academy notes that Asner is one of the few performers to lead the same character through comedy and drama on network television.
Off camera, he brought the same bluntness to real disputes. In 1978 he walked a Screen Actors Guild picket line in Los Angeles during a strike against advertising agencies.
Photo credits
- Ed Asner with his Emmy, 1971 (also shown with Valerie Harper). Rick Browne / Los Angeles Times; UCLA Library Special Collections. Source: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0002w6bw — CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
- Ed Asner on the SAG picket line, 1978. R. L. Oliver / Los Angeles Times; UCLA Library Special Collections. Source: https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz0002rn3r — CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
- Ed Asner at Phoenix Comicon, 2012 (several frames). Gage Skidmore. Sources: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/7284215376/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/7284217580/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/7284218424/, https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/7284219708/ — CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
- Ed Asner in 2012. Gage Skidmore. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ed_Asner_in_2012_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg — CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
- Ed Asner in 2014. Louise Palanker. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/louisepalanker/14564004291/ — CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
- Ed Asner in 2017. Terry Ballard. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/terryballard/35028952196/ — CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Cropped, resized, motion, captions.
*NewsCubby articles are prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by people.*
