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ED ASNER PASSES AWAY

It was sadly announced this afternoon that actor and author Ed Asner has passed away at the age of 91.

While known by younger audiences for his lead role in Disney's Up and his turn as Santa Claus in Will Ferrell's classic Elf, he was legendary for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show before taking the character onto its own dramatic spin-off series.  In doing so, Asner became one of only two actors to ever win Emmys for comedy and drama playing the same character.  Asner won seven Emmys over the course of his career, five alone for his portrayal of Lou Grant.

Asner had an incredible career in TV, film and theater that ran decades, including starring in the 1974 Verne Gagne film The Wrestler, playing promoter Frank Bass, who was more or less a stand-in for Gagne himself since Gagne was playing the role of Mike Bullard, the World Champion. 

In the film, Asner's character is working on building towards a big title bout for Bullard against Billy Taylor (Billy Robinson) while also dealing with a mobster who wants to get involved in his business (leading to a great scene with The Crusher and The Bruiser) as well as everything else you can imagine, including the death of a wrestler in the ring, leading to a great Asner scene where he rips on the local media for not taking the sport and the death seriously:

The film is available for streaming and is quite the representation of that era of pro wrestling with cameos of everyone from Dusty Rhodes to Vincent J. McMahon to Ric Flair popping up.  It is well worth checking out with Asner as the glue holding it together.

On a personal note, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Asner several years back after he made a discussion and signing appearance to promote his book The Grouchy Historian and he was absolutely wonderful.  During our discussion, he name-dropped The Dusek Brothers in Texas from watching wrestling in his youth and was truly a wonderful, giving person who was involved in countless charities. 

Asner was interviewed just three days ago by The Hollywood Reporter about his life and career and it's a great read.  You can read the interview below.

Everyone at PWInsider.com sends our deepest condolences to the Asner family, his friends and countless fans.

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