Actor and Wyandotte High School alumnus Ed Asner died on Sunday at the age of 91.
Asner, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, was perhaps best known for portraying the character of Lou Grant on “Lou Grant” and on the “Mary Tyler Moore” show. He also starred in a major voice role in the animated 2009 movie, “Up.”
Asner’s death was confirmed by his official Twitter account, which stated, “We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully. Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head – Goodnight dad. We love you.”
“I am saddened to hear about the loss of the remarkable Ed ‘Lou Grant’ Asner,” stated Kathy Hanis, a local publicist who helped coordinate one of Asner’s visits to KCK. “He loved his family and was proud of being a Wyandotte High School Grad and from Kansas City, Kansas. Always quick with words and I loved his dry sense of humor. Kansas City will miss you Ed.”
Working with the KCK Centennial under former Mayor Jack Reardon, Hanis helped bring Asner to the local celebration.
Asner won seven Emmy awards in his career, including three for the “Mary Tyler Moore” show, two for “Lou Grant,” one for “Rich Man, Poor Man” and one for “Roots.” Asner also was a recipient of the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
He also was well known for championing the rights of working people, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1980s.
Asner returned to Kansas City, Kansas, occasionally and helped the community raise funds for various causes.
In 2013, he returned to Wyandotte High School, where he was presented with a football jersey while helping raise funds for the United Way. He was a member of the football team during his years at Wyandotte, and he also became interested in journalism and broadcasting during that time. His parents owned a secondhand store and a junkyard in Kansas City, Kansas.
Asner also served in the U.S. Army and attended the University of Chicago.
In 2013, Asner told a group gathered at Wyandotte High School that he had a lot of affection for Kansas City, Kansas, and it was “a gentle place to grow up.” While there was some discrimination in his day, there wasn’t the same degree of hatred as one might find in other places, he noted.
“It was a nice taste of what America should be, and I liked it,” he said in 2013.
Asner said then that he learned about brotherhood and love from his days at Wyandotte High School.
“I learned to love my football coach, and my journalism professor,” he said in 2013. “I had two tight friends, one who just called, and one who died three days ago, and I will always cherish the memory of those two guys. I learned about love, about brotherhood, and I learned that I wasn’t such a bad guy.”
