The great actor and activist Ed Asner has died at the age of 91.
His career was legendary: the Mary Tyler Moore Show followed by Lou Grant in the 1970s and '80s (winning several Emmys), then making innumerable guest spots on other TV shows and in movies, then finding late-in-life success with the movie Up and on the big Netflix hit Cobra Kai. He was Mr. Showbiz, a veteran actor, a brilliant talent.
Ed Asner wasn't a New Yorker (as far as I know) but in 1994 I saw him on the stage at Symphony Space on West 9th Street when he was part of a reading of Don Juan in Hell, the play within the play Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw. The reading consisted of Asner, Rene Auberjenois (then on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at the time, also now deceased), Harris Yulin (who would appear in Clear and Present Danger that summer), and Dianne Wiest (soon to win her second Osacar for Bullets Over Broadway).
It was a great array of talent to see reading this amazing work, and Ed Asner gave it his all. His joy of performing with his fellow actors, all of them at the top of their game, was memorable, and I'm honored that I got to see him, and them, do it on the stage.
RIP Ed, you won't see your likes again.
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