KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last month, Hollywood icon Edward Asner, who was born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, died at the age of 91 in Los Angeles.
Last Sunday, in a small private ceremony, Asner was buried alongside his parents and siblings at Sheffield Cemetery in Kansas City, according to Rickie Haith, Chair, Friends of Sheffield Cemetery.
Asner graduated from Wyandotte High School in 1947 where he also played football.
Asner became a beloved addition to millions of households through his character, Lou Grant. First on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” and then as the star of the spinoff “Lou Grant Show.”
He is the only actor to have won an Emmy in both drama and comedy for the same character. He in fact, earned six Emmys, more than any other actors, and five Golden Globes.
Younger generations will recognize him as the voice of Carl Frederickson in the 2009 Disney Pixar animation “UP,” which was the first animated and 3D film to open the famed Cannes Film Festival 2009 and won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2010.
Asner’s father Morris Asner ran a junkyard in KCK named Asner Iron & Metal, which first opened in 1903 and continues to operate today.
His brother Benjamin Asner owned and operated a record store in the Kansas City area called Capers Corner, off Mission Road.
Both Morris and Ben Asner are burried in Sheffield Cemetery.
Ed Asner served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1981 until 1985 and was an outspoken advocate for many causes, often championing the disenfranchised.
He was married twice, first to Nancy Sykes from 1959 to 1988. They have three children.
He then married Cindy Gilmore in 1998. Gilmore filed for legal separation in 2007. Asner filed for divorce in 2015.