It was sad to hear about Ed’s passing while Kathy and I were in the middle of working on our podcasts. He was a helluva’ person! Not just a great heavy in movies/TV, but a person who put his money where his mouth was. Unlike St. Reagan and Charlie Heston, Ed still got good work while being president of SAG/AFTRA.
He was also a Renaissance man who never forgot what the rest of Americans do before he became a famous actor. As for the label, he could do Comedy, Action, Drama and voice work. He played Santa in six different things: Elf, Regular Show, The Ellen Show, Olive the Other Reindeer, The Story of Santa Claus and Highway to Heaven. Ed was definitely the guy to go for a gruff Santa.
I will just go with the elephant in the room. Ed will forever be known as the grizzled, world-weary Lou Grant. The news director at Mary Tyler Moore’s struggling TV station for eight seasons. Then he transformed his SitCom-based curmudgeon into a drama-based character. Lou was the same even if the surroundings weren’t for another five seasons. I grew up with watching both. The influence was strong on my brother and me, when my brother received The Adventure People TV New Crew set, we always agreed to name the action figure pictured above Ed or Lou, ignoring the box saying he was a cameraman called Jeff. Since he was often part of numerous Space Operas with our Star Wars figures, Lou was usually cast an elder person filled with wisdom. I do recommend watching both shows. Ed would continue to do the character in all the Mary spinoffs, Roseanne and one we could assume was him in The Simpsons. Why not? James L Brooks worked on all these beloved shows. I loved the time he led a raid on a weird mini-universe to rescue Mary (Robin Gross) from being trapped in her Seventies show on SNL, the era before the unfunny skit show only cast Flavor-of-the-Month assholes and artists.
In my adult years, I continued to see his newer and past work. He’s a villain in The Skin Game, what Tarantino stole for Django Unchained. He was the conflicted ship captain in Roots. You’ll catch him as villain of the week in other stuff, often black and white reruns. I loved his voice work in cartoons. Other than being Carl in Up, he was the perfect choice to be Granny Goodness in Superman (Nineties) and JLA (Aughts). Ed was an obvious guest or recurring character for Duckman, Gargoyles, Two Angry Beavers, The Wild Thornberrys, Johnny Bravo, King of the Hill (one of Cotton’s old WWII buddies, Stinky) and the evil Ed Wuncler in Boondocks. You could always tell it was him.
Ed was a very political guy too. I followed him on Twitter to the end. Allegedly CBS killed Lou Grant due to Ed being very vocal against St. Reagan dragging us into Latin America’s various civil wars. He gave $500 to Roger Moore when the mediocre filmmaker needed capital to make Roger & Me. Again, he never forgot his time in the trenches of working blue-collar jobs or his family’s business back in Kansas City. Ed was never quiet about his beliefs or positions too. Regardless of any disagreements I may have had with him, I respected him for being consistent unlike today’s NeoLiberal Democrats letting the world burn while they have vanity birthday parties in Martha’s Vineyard. During Christmas Day 2000, the only phone call I answered at my job was his voice on an auto-dialer pushing for the end of the Electoral College. I wish it worked. We all could’ve been spared the horrors of 2016 but it was a crappy auto-dialer if the dumb thing was calling toll-free numbers.
Thanks for everything Ed! You will be immortalized as Lou Grant in a positive way and probably Carl to younger generations. Plus, I want to personally thank you for influencing us to rename and animate an action figure in a positive light!