January 20 - Leon Ames

On this day, in 1902, Harry Wycoff was born in Portland, Indiana. A fairly typical Midwestern boy, Harry attended Indian University at Bloomington, served in World War I in the Army as a field artillery gunner (later transferring to the flying corps) and always dreamed of becoming an actor. He began pursuing that dream as a stage manager for playwright Charles K. Champlin's theatre company. He eventually drifted on stage in progressively larger roles until he played the lead in Tomorrow and Tomorrow in Los Angeles.

That performance led to a name change to Leon Waycoff and, in 1931, to his big screen debut in a pre-code Spencer Tracy/George Raft film called Quick Millions. Leon spent the Thirties playing dozens of bit parts in film. By 1935 he'd changed his name again to Leon Ames. Fame still eluded him until he became an "overnight" success after playing Mr. Smith, Judy Garland's father, in Meet Me in St. Louis in 1944. Leon worked steadily for the rest of the decade and into the Fifties, working alongside Red Skelton, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day.

Image copyright Disney

Leon was also a regular player on the stages of Broadway. He made his debut in 1933 in It Pays to Sin (which apparently didn't pay all that well, it closed after three performances). Over the next three decades, he appeared in a dozen shows on the Great White Way including 1942's The Russian People and 1958's Winesburg, Ohio.

Leon joined the Disney family in 1961 as the President of Medfield College, Rufus Daggett, in the Fred MacMurray classic The Absent-Minded Professor. He reprised the overly stuffy Rufus for the 1963 sequel, Son of Flubber. In 1964, he appeared with Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, as an overly stuffy judge (who also happens to write crime novels on the side). Leon would again reprise his role in that movie's sequel, The Monkey's Uncle, the following year.

Image copyright TriStar Pictures

Leon spent much of the rest of his career as a staple on television and in movies. For the small screen, he had recurring roles in Mr. Ed, Father of the Bride (a one season series based on the Spencer Tracy film) and Bewitched. On the big screen, his appearances include Tora! Tora! Tora! and Timber Tramps. His final film was Peggy Sue Got Married in 1986 as Kathleen Turner's grandfather.

There are two other aspects to Leon's life worth mentioning. First, he was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933. In 1957, he would serve a term as its president. Second, on February 12, 1964, an armed intruder broke into his home and held Leon and his wife hostage in demand for $50,000. Leon called his business partner for the money, the business partner alerted the police on the way over and the intruder was captured shortly after leaving the house (with Mrs. Ames and the business partner in the trunk of the car).

Leon would enjoy his twilight years until he suffered a stroke on October 12, 1993. He passed away in his home in Laguna Beach, California from complications brought on by that stroke and was buried in the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn Cemetery. He was 91.

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).