Getting recognized for your career achievements must feel pretty good.
Just ask actor and activist Edward Asner.
Asner has been named the 38th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild’s most prestigious honor–the Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment. SAG honors those individuals who embody the highest ideals of the profession.
The actor is no stranger to the ways of the actors’ union, having been its president for two consecutive terms from 1981-85. During his tenure, there were no strikes, and he made steady improvements in SAG’s contracts. He continues to be an activist for the working actor.
Most of us remember him, though, as the cantankerous, but beloved, Lou Grant from the classic Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later with his own dramatic series Lou Grant, about the inner workings of a major newspaper, in the late ’70s. Both series earned Asner five Emmys and three Golden Globes. Lou Grant was the only show in television history in which a spin-off character from a comedic sitcom was turned into a dramatic series.
We talked to Mr. Asner about his feelings on actors working in the profession today and how Lou Grant shaped television.
How do you feel about receiving the Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild?
Ed Asner: It’s a great feeling. I was totally shocked and surprised by being named the recipient. And I thought how lucky I was to have fooled them again.
Fooled them how?
Asner: By my so-called body of work and good deeds….
Oh, you’re due. I loved Lou Grant. Even though I was a little young when it was on the air, I remember it well.
Asner: I’m glad you got to stay up late.
[laughing] Yeah. And when I saw Nancy Marchand on The Sopranos, I said, “Hey, it’s Mrs. Pynchon from Lou Grant!” It’s a shame we lost her.
Asner: Did you ever see a class act like that?
She was a wonderful actress.
Asner: Doing a scene with her [on Lou Grant], I learned yet more things about acting. We had a special appreciation for each other.
Back to the topic of SAG, what was it like being president of the guild for four years? Did you find it fulfilling?
Asner: It was very hard. I went in as a total naif and fell through the asphalt. Actually, more like a rabbit hole, and came up into a whole different world. I learned an unbelievable amount. I guess you could say it was my introduction to manhood–I grew up.
On the frontlines, as it were. I’m sure it gave you somewhat of an appreciation for what the president of the United States must go through….
Asner: I’m sure he has better buffers than I did.
What’s your take on what happened last June with the potential actors’ strike? Did the actors get a good deal in the end?
Asner: There’s never been a time in history, no matter what the public thinks, when actors have been paid more than they should be. I would argue about those actors that are considered “bankable” because they are the ones that supposedly bring you into the movie house. That’s a different part of the business. But every other actor below that level–and there are only, at most, 15 to 20 people at that level–everyone below that level deserves every penny they ever got. It’s like an athlete. He has a string of hot years, and then he fades into nothingness. The actor doesn’t necessarily fade into nothingness. After his hot years, he fades into a different category.
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What issues facing actors today do you wish you could change?
Asner: That no matter how hard we try, it becomes more and more difficult for an actor to make a living. I hate to keep harping on the money aspect of our lives, but…I believe when Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild [from 1947-1952 and 1959-1960], there were 15,000 members. Now there are over 100,000. And the jobs have not grown commensurably. Cable will either be showing you movies or will be making their own movies, with stars. We are confronted enormously with the worst runaway production we’ve ever been confronted with, affecting the whole industry. I don’t think commercials have grown in terms of the number of people employed. I don’t know how many series there are, but they certainly don’t have the life sustenance that they once had. These days, there isn’t any time to breathe. If you’re not an instant success the first night, you are doomed. When Lou Grant debuted [in 1977], we fortunately were allowed to keeping breathing, even though we didn’t draw any numbers that first year.
Lou Grant had great writing and, sooner or later, people were going to take notice.
Asner: I would stick my neck out and say we had one of the best ensemble casts you’ll ever find. The writing was phenomenal. See, we had to satisfy three gods on Lou Grant. We had to satisfy the very similitude of journalism, which nobody has done better. We had to have issues that were worthwhile and pertinent to society at that time. And we had to try and make it interesting and dramatic. Most shows go for the dramatic and exciting, but the degree of similitude that we had to go through, none of those shows compare to that.
You also took an amazing risk, taking an established comedic character from a hugely popular TV sitcom and putting him in a dramatic setting.
Asner: It was unbelievably foolish. It was never done before, and it will never be done again. And it took us two years to get out from under the past.
But you made it work.
Asner: That’s due to a lot of great talent. Fortunately, I created the aegis by the love I had from the Mary Tyler Moore show, and that allowed all of the other talented people to assemble and put together a very different type of show.
Of course, the Mary Tyler Moore Show was also a Saturday night staple in my household. Do you remember how you got the part of Lou Grant?
Asner: I read for the part and gave a very intelligent reading. Unfortunately, the producers, Alan Burns and Jim Brooks, didn’t think I was right for the part. But since I came so highly recommended, they wanted me to come back and read with Mary. And they told me next time to read it wild and crazy. I wasn’t a comedian, so I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. But I told them, “Look–why don’t you let me try and read it like that now? And if I don’t achieve what you are looking for, don’t have me come back.” So, I read it again like a nut. And they laughed their asses off and said to read it just like that again when I came back. I came back to read with Mary, and I was trying to remember what the hell I had done. But I went nuts again, and they laughed again. Years later, I heard the story that Mary had turned to [Alan and Bill] after I had left, and with a wrinkled face said, “Are you sure?” And they responded, “That’s your Lou Grant.”
What advice would you give a young actor starting out?
Asner: Never stand still. Only stand still enough to learn, and once you stop learning in that stance, move off. Always keep yourself engaged, in theater, in whatever job you can get. If you can’t get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. But be around actors because that is where you will primarily learn.
The 8th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will air on TNT on Sunday, March 10 at 8 p.m.
