Name: Ed Asner Recalls His Audition for 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' & Talks About Recording Pixar’s 'Up'
Uploaded: 2021-08-16T17:00:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ed Asner Recalls His Audition for 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' & Talks About Recording Pixar’s 'Up'' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ed Asner Recalls His Audition for 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' & Talks About Recording Pixar’s 'Up'' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-16. Transcript available.

Ed Asner Recalls His Audition for 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' & Talks About Recording Pixar’s 'Up'

Hey everybody, it is Bob Sagerts here for you.
This is a really interesting episode,
someone that I have always admired and looked up to.
He's 91 years old, it's Ed Asner.
I love Ed Asner, I always have.
The man is a straight shooter, he tells you what he thinks,
and it has always been in the parts he's played.
When I say Ed Asner, you think of the Mary Tyler Moore Show,
you think of Lou Grant,
you think of seven years of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
And then five years of Lou Grant, a spinoff, a dramatic spinoff.
He's got a book, it is called Son of a Junk Man.
I recommend it really highly.
It really explains a lot.
How do you create an Ed Asner?
Read Son of a Junk Man.
There is only one, Ed Asner.
One of the most beautiful animated films I've ever seen,
Up, CGI miracle.
He was the star of Up.
And he continues to work at 91.
He's got a lot of stuff coming on.
If you want to go see him do a thing that he'd done once before,
it's pretty special.
He's doing a thing with the great Jamie Farr,
and it's simply called Two Jews Talking.
And it's going to be at the Flat Rock Playhouse and Two Jews Talking.
I mean, can't get enough of that.
And it's Ed Asner and Jamie Farr, and that's Labor Day weekend.
I mean, we're talking about a man who, in 2017, did a play called A Man and His
Prostate.
We're talking about a legend in television, all the way back from Alfred Hitchcock
Presents, Ben Casey.
Every hit show this man was on as a guest and continued to work for decades.
I just think the world of him.
He does a lot of kind, philanthropic work that he will never want to talk about.
And he's a socially active man.
He was called an activist for many years simply for speaking his mind
and being on a well-known show and having a platform.
So you know what you want to do.
You want to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast.
And you can do whatever you want.
You can download it.
You can follow it if that's where you're getting it.
You know where it is.
We all say the same stuff.
It's where all your podcasts can be found, except they don't quite say it in
that.
I think it's on a swatch now.
A swatch used to be a watch.
It may still be.
It also means a fabric sample.
So you can hear this podcast on a fabric sample.
With no further ado, truly a legend, a legend of television, and of film, and
of acting,
and a very special man, here comes Ed Asner.
Ed, thank you for doing my podcast.
I adore you.
Well, praise goes a short way with me.
I thought you were going to say you'd tolerate me.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, well, I stomach you.
Now, I worked with you.
I was directing a television movie with Harlan Williams, Elizabeth Berkley, and
Robert Wagner.
And you came in to play the network executive, and we flew you to Vancouver.
And you were there just for a day to play the ornery TV executive.
And we were so excited you did it, the president of the network.
Well, I played it like real life.
You did.
Yeah.
And I asked you as a joke.
It was 1.30 in the morning.
And you said, Bob, when are we going to get done?
And I said, soon, Ed.
I just, I apologize.
Hit me as hard as you can.
Punch me in the mouth.
I was joking.
And guess what you did?
Hit you in the basin?
Really hard.
And a tooth hit a tooth.
But fortunately, I didn't have to use my Screen Actors Guild coverage.
Uh-huh.
And then we shot till 3 in the morning.
And I knew what I always knew about you is that you are literally the consummate
pro.
You're just, you're fucking amazing.
Well, I don't remember a thing about that.
Yeah, I didn't make it up.
I've got the footage.
I'm going to send it over in an hour.
That's why every time your name is mentioned, I shrivel.
I didn't think I had any relationship at all with you.
Yeah.
Well, you also came to my Scleroderma Research Foundation benefit more than
once.
And you are so generous, Ed.
I don't care how much of a curmudgeon you try to portray.
You've got a giant damn heart, sir.
Right.
I know.
I know.
It's a disease.
Yeah.
It's a disease.
But it's cheaper than giving money.
You did give money also.
Oh, I don't want to hear.
I'm going to send you a check stub and also the clip of the show.
Send the money back, though, would you?
So how are you doing?
You've been traveling.
Yeah, I've started to do some traveling.
I barely make it, made it, do this screening right now because I'm in terrible
pain.
Why?
Well, the parts just aren't effective anymore.
The body part.
Right.
Because we pain.
Back pain, your whole body?
No, I need rotator cuff on the right shoulder.
It tore my, my bicep on the left shoulder.
And I have a left leg that I curse spies for the pain it gives me.
So the only good functioning limb I have is my right leg and the joint in
between.
The joint in between the right leg.
You're not talking about up all the way between your legs.
That's right.
Oh, so you're saying that's working well.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, well, I, I haven't been able to really test it fully.
I'm, I'm a little, I'm a bit elderly, you know.
Do you, do you want me to send a friend?
Do you have one?
I have one and, and she's a giant fan of yours.
Huge.
Oh, well, I think that would be delightful.
This is more than a podcast.
I'm a, I'm a pimping service.
Is your friend an elephant?
A little smaller.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
But she works at the zoo.
At the zoo?
Yeah.
My goodness.
My goodness.
Name is Pixie.
How did you know that?
Oh my God, you know her.
Yeah, I know.
So, Ed, yesterday I was on a plane coming back from, not yesterday, two days
ago, coming back from Nashville.
I go through the TSA, and the gentleman says to me, I have to tell you, I have
the best job in the world, because this morning I met one of my heroes who
entertained me my whole life, Ed Asner, was on the flight.
When was this?
When was this?
Two days ago.
Now you've been, were you traveling there doing, because you're always working,
Ed, with all the crap at 91 that you go through, you're literally always
working.
Well, it's not work, because I have strength to do that work.
I am a better human being because of it.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, I'm just trying, where was I coming from?
That's what I'm trying to think.
Yeah, that's the question.
Did you connect in Nashville?
That's the thing.
Oh.
He didn't have that intel.
But I can find out, um, from your friend Charles, what, where you were, uh,
going.
Have you been doing speaking engagements?
I do some, occasionally.
And is it true that you're going to be doing, uh, around Labor Day, uh, uh, the
play that you did in 2017 with Jamie Farr again?
Yes, yeah.
It's two Jews talking.
It's a flat rock playhouse.
Jamie and I, uh, are Hamish together.
Right.
Now, I have to ask you, because, um, my first, what?
You don't have to.
Okay, I'd like to.
Okay.
Um, I made a choice, uh, to ask you.
You've worked, um, since the very beginning, uh, you were, you were the, uh,
son of a junk man.
There we are.
That is a great book.
It's a best-selling book.
Right.
And it's your life from the West Bottoms of Kansas City to the bright lights of
Hollywood.
And the foreword is by Paul Rudd.
Yeah.
Because, and here you are, handsome as hell.
Uh, I would assume that's the picture within the cover of the book.
Yeah.
And you are a person, I would think, who probably has met everybody that is an
actor or lover of actors.
Well, until, until I read the reviews in the New York Times, I'd be like, I don't
know a goddamn one of them.
Uh, so you have, um, you don't have memory lapses when it comes to Paul Newman,
correct?
No.
No.
Paul and I were a peg buddy.
And you did a couple of, you did Fort Apache, but, uh, but you did a couple
others, didn't you?
A couple other what?
Movies.
Uh, not people.
You didn't do other people.
Oh, no.
No, they didn't eat.
People did you.
Were you, were you always a sexual man?
I hope so.
Do you think that was a, um, I was going to call it a handicap, but it's, in
golf, that's a great thing.
Were you, were you, did you get in trouble with yourself just because you were
a physical kind of, uh, cat?
No, no, no, no.
I, uh, I was always years ahead of my age.
And, uh, I, uh, it keeps me going now.
I can't deliver, but at least it's nice to think about.
I think Trixie might be getting in her car now.
Right, right.
So, I gotta ask you what everybody wants to ask you.
Well, the first thing is Paul Newman.
Paul Newman, one of my favorite actors of all time, huge movie star.
You were always known, um, and when I was a kid, I would watch and be mesmerized
at how spot-on, proficient, amazing, real, technical yet.
Uh, I would think that would draw actors like Paul Newman toward you.
Mm-hmm.
Is that how you think that friendship began, getting to work with you and see
what kind of a man you are?
Well, yeah, but, uh, uh, Paul, Paul was much more relaxed than I, uh, I was
always intensively trying to better the product and he was, he was satisfied
with phoning it in some time.
Was he fun to hang out with, he looks like the most fun?
No, uh, we lived separate lives, were, uh, agents for the FBI.
The, I, I remember when I came to New York to work on the Fort Apache and I
came to rehearsal.
And we had rehearsals before we started filming and, um, we met in midtown for
a rehearsal, but some, some rehearsal studio.
And there he was, and his hair was shockingly upright, he must have stiffened
it.
So the blonde hair was, uh, a flag label and he was wearing a red Mackinac
jacket.
Now he, uh, he walked from the rehearsal back to the hotel that he was staying
in.
And I thought, my God, look at him.
I mean, he, uh, he's avoiding the press wherever he goes, but he's attracting
about as much attention as he could in that red Mackinac jacket.
I keep blonde hair.
So I learned a little about promotion from Paul Newman.
Right.
You also, one of your first things, uh, work wise was with Elvis Presley, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did two shows with Elvis.
One was kid Galahad.
And, uh, that's when he was still learning karate.
His hands wherever he could.
And the second time he was much more polished, not breaking hands.
And, uh, I would say seducing as many ladies as he could.
And, um, he was a little ethereal by the time I saw him again.
And that was in, um, Age of Half.
Right.
Starring Mary Tyler Moore, too.
You had done so much film work, stage work, consummate actor work.
Famous, famous parts.
Um, and not always the noblest of men, uh, in, in Roots.
Um, they call me, Mr.
Tibbs.
Yeah.
These are, you, you got to work in things that are literally will always be his
star.
I mean, Sidney Poitier, can you, uh, do you, would you like to share a little
bit of the
experience of working with him in that film?
Well, he was, uh, he was very nice.
He was good.
He, he was, uh, he, he had made it.
And, uh, I was trying to match those footsteps, trying to make it.
He was a slicker, a slick dude.
Right.
And amazing.
Uh, and was he as spot on and meticulous about, about his work and profession?
I'm sure that he was.
I mean, he's, it's amazing.
He changed the world, actually.
You think so?
I think so, because not a lot of black leading people were starring in as many
movies.
He, he changed that around when he was able to come up.
Well, that's true.
Well, I, I feel closer to Harry Belafonte.
Uh, there is, uh, a non-pareo in terms of menschless kite.
Menschless kite for people that don't know Yiddish is just a, a wonderful man,
a gentleman.
Who gives to the world.
Right.
And whose family gives to the world.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Through the girls who follow in his footsteps, they're as nice as he is.
Shari, I know her over the years.
She's a sweetheart.
I mean, it's, it's, you know, I did the silly thing because I already know
pretty much a lot of stuff about you, but not, you know, not personally.
But I, but your IMDB is, it's a, it's a, it's a fucking encyclopedia.
Yeah, it's, it's crazy.
Man, is it, it's, is it hundreds of movies and television?
I mean, it's.
Hundreds of movies, but certainly, you know, TV and everything, yeah.
Right, right, right.
And then where are you at?
You've always spoken your mind 