November 15 - Ed Asner

Picture courtesy of wikia.com

On this day, in 1929, Yitzhak Edward Asner was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Ed graduated from Wyandotte High School in Kansas City and moved north for college, attending the University of Chicago. After a short stint working a factory job for General Motors, Ed joined the United States Army Signal Corps. It was during this time that he was bitten by the acting bug and appeared in several plays that toured around the Army camps in Europe entertaining the troops.

Upon leaving the military, Ed briefly joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago before moving to New York. He would occasionally return to the Windy City to appear with the successor to Playwrights, The Second City. In New York, Ed got roles in such off-Broadway shows as a revival of Threepenny Opera until 1960, when he made his on Broadway debut in Face of a Hero with Jack Lemmon. Hero ran for a total of 36 performances.

Picture grabbed from metv.com

Ed made his television debut in 1957 on CBS in an anthology series called Studio One. Throughout the rest of the Fifties and the Sixties, he would make guest appearances on a variety of shows. Sometimes it was sci-fi like The Invaders or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Sometimes it was dramas like Route 66 or Mr. Novak. Frequently it was other anthology shows like The Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 

Ed's days of bouncing from role to role took a break in 1970 when he landed a steady gig as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. For the next seven years he gave Mary Richards hell for having too much spunk, winning three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy. When that show wrapped, Ed did something unprecedented in the history of television. His character received a spin-off titled Lou Grant, not that unusual except that the new show was an hour long drama instead of a half hour comedy. The unprecedented part is that Ed would go on to win two more Emmy Awards, this time for Lead Actor in a Drama. He became the first person to ever win Emmys for both comedy and drama playing the same character (in the forty years since only one other person has managed that feat, Uzo Aduba for Orange Is the New Black). Ed would later win two more Emmys, one for his role in Roots and another for his role in Rich Man, Poor Man making him the most decorated performer in Emmy history with seven total wins.

Picture stolen from fanpop.com

Ed is no stranger to the big screen either. One of his first films was an uncredited role in the 1962 Elvis Presley movie Kid Galahad. Dozens of other roles followed including parts in They Call Me Mr. Tibbs with Sidney Poitier, Fort Apache, The Bronx with Paul Newman and Oliver Stone's JFK. His most enduring film role is probably as Santa Clause in 2003's Christmas Classic Elf.

Ed has done a number of roles for the Walt Disney Company, mostly as voice work for animated characters. For those who remember the series Gargoyles, he was the voice of Hudson for 39 episodes. He voiced Evil Georgie in a 1994 episode of Dinosaurs and various voices for Recess, Hercules, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Ed made live action appearances in the 1976 movie Gus and and an episode of Disneyland. His biggest contribution to the Disney family was as one of my favorite characters of all time, Carl Fredricksen in 2009's Up. I wholeheartedly agree with the critic who felt a new Oscar category should have been created for Vocal Acting just so it could have been given to Ed.

Picture lifted from geeks.media

Outside of acting, Ed has been highly active in politics and charity work. He was a two term president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1981-85. He endorsed Barack Obama for US President and regularly endorses candidates to lesser offices. He serves on the boards of The Survivor Mitzvah Project (providing aid to holocaust survivors in Europe), the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife and a non-profit school for kids with autism, Exceptional Minds (both his son and a grandson are autistic).

September 26 - Paul Leonard Newman

On this day, in 2008, Paul Leonard Newman passed away from lung cancer in Westport, Connecticut. Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio 83 years earlier as the younger son of store owners, Paul picked up on the theater vibe pretty early. His first role came at the age of seven, the court jester in his school's production of Robin Hood. Just three years later, Paul would be gracing the stage at the Cleveland Play House in Saint George and the Dragon.

After high school, Paul would spend a hot second at Ohio University before joining the United States Navy and shipping out to the Pacific Theater of World War II. He wanted to be a V-12 pilot, but his colorblindness kept that from happening; he became a gunner instead. As luck would have it, Paul's pilot got an ear infection just before the Battle of Okinawa and he didn't fly out to his assigned aircraft carrier, the USS Bunker Hill. A kamikaze attack just days later killed the other members of his unit.

Paul returned home from the war and completed a BA at Kenyon College. He began touring with summer stock companies before moving on to Yale School of Drama for a year. Paul then moved to New York City and studied under Lee Strasberg. He had his Broadway debut in the original cast of Picnic in 1953. He also appeared in the original productions of The Desperate Hours and Sweet Bird of Youth. During this time, Paul also started getting roles on television, mostly in episodes of anthology series like Tales of Tomorrow. He was supposedly reluctant to make the move to Hollywood, but it clearly worked out for him.

Paul had a screen test in 1954 with James Dean for East of Eden. He didn't get that part, but would, after Dean's death, get parts that were meant for the late actor. One of those, Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me, proved to be the beginning of Paul's long career in the movies. The list of films that Paul made shine is extensive and impressive. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Hudsucker Proxy, Road to Perdition. And that's probably not even half of the good ones.

Paul's life wasn't just about acting. While learning to dive race cars for the 1969 film Winning, he was bitten by the speed bug. Paul would enter his first professional race in 1972. Over the years, as a member of the Sports Car Club of America, he would win four national SCCA championships. In 1979, he finished in second place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans competition. At the age of 70, he became the oldest driver to be part of a winning team, bringing home first place in his class at the 24 Hours of Daytona.

The combination of acting and race car driving led to one of Paul's two roles with Disney. In 2006's Cars, he plays the crusty former racer Doc Hudson who teaches the young punk Lightning McQueen a thing or two. It would be the last major role Paul would have in a movie. Twenty years earlier, he made his other mark on Disney history in The Color of Money. That was a reprisal of his role from The Hustler, Fast Eddie Felson, who teaches a young punk named Tom Cruise a thing or two. Money would also finally get Paul an Oscar after he'd been nominated seven previous times.

As if actor and race car driver weren't enough to occupy his time, Paul also became a big time philanthropist. In 1982, Newman's Own salad dressing hit the supermarket shelves. Paul's credo was that all after taxes profits from the company would be donated to charity. After expanding into pasta sauce, popcorn, wine and a whole range of other products, Newman's Own has donated over 500 million dollars to various charities. One of those charities is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which Newman founded in 1988. Seriously ill children get to come to the camp and just be kids for a week, free of charge. Several additional camps have opened around the world and they collectively host over 20,000 kids every year. In 1999, Paul co-founded the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, which has grown to include 175 members all striving to better their communities through giving. After his death, the unofficial newspaper of the Pope said "Newman was a generous heart, an actor of dignity and style rare in Hollywood quarters." I couldn't agree more.