Ed Asner - Wikipedia

Ed Asner (/ˈæsnər/; born November 15, 1929) is an American actor, voice actor, and a former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is primarily known for his 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 character in both a comedy and a drama. He is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven, five for portraying Lou Grant (three as Supporting Actor in a Comedy Television Series and two as Lead Actor in a Dramatic Television Series). His other Emmys were for performances in two of the most significant mini-television series of the 1970s: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), where he won for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a TV series, and Roots (1977), for which he won for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a TV series.[2]

He played John Wayne's adversary Bart Jason in the 1966 Western El Dorado. He has played Santa Claus in several films, notably in 2003's Elf.[3] In 2009, he starred as the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's animated film Up, and made a guest appearance on CSI: NY in the episode "Yahrzeit". In early 2011, Asner returned to television as butcher Hank Greziak in Working Class, the first original sitcom on cable channel CMT. He starred in the Canadian television series Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, on CBC Television and has appeared in the 2013 television series The Glades. Asner guest-starred as Guy Redmayne, a homophobic billionaire who supports Alicia Florrick's campaign, in the sixth season of The Good Wife.

Asner was born on November 15, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas.[4][5] His Jewish Russian-born parents, Lizzie (née Seliger), a housewife, and Morris David Asner,[6][7] ran a second-hand shop and junkyard.[4] He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family.[8][9]

Asner attended Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Chicago. He worked on the assembly line for General Motors.[10] Asner served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and appeared in plays that toured Army camps in Europe.[11]