Stu Shostak has a great guest on his show today…Lou Grant himself, Ed Asner. Ed is one of the most respected actors in the business. I even know a thespian who loathes Asner's politics but admits the guy is about as good a performer as has ever trod the boards or stepped before a camera. That says something. Ed was also a darned good president of the Screen Actors Guild for a while.
Of course, he and Stu will talk about The Mary Tyler Moore Show where I always believed he contributed a lot more than just his role as Mary's crusty but benign boss. It just felt like the presence of Ed Asner in the cast elevated the whole standard of acting on that program, making everyone else have to come up to his tier, and he also inspired the show to move more towards character comedy than line jokes. I'm not sure he ever had a line on that show that would have been funny read by any other actor…but they were funny coming out of his Lou Grant.
To hear Stu's Show live and for free, go to www.stusshow.com today at 4 PM Pacific, which is 7 PM Eastern and other times in other zones. The program theoretically runs two hours but Stu has been known to run over and it wouldn't surprise me if the chat with Ed Asner did. If you miss the live webcast, you can still hear it. Soon after, it will be available there as a podcast download for a mere 99 cents, which is a bargain price to hear the conversation and to have it on your computer forever. While you're at it, download the previous two episodes which were all about The Dick Van Dyke Show.