Lou Grant now on the court beat

Mary Tyler Moore turned the world on with her smile, but it was her gruff boss who made television history.

Ed Asner is the only actor to have won an Emmy Award in a comedy and in a drama for playing the same character.

Asner ruled the roost as Lou Grant, the “I hate spunk” boss of the Minneapolis TV station on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” When the half hour comedy ended after 167 episodes, Asner was given his own show in 1977, an hour-long drama. Lou Grant moved to California, where he became a newspaper editor of the L.A. Tribune on the appropriately named “Lou Grant.” Rumor has it that the show was so well respected that it often was required viewing for some college journalism classes.

(FYI: Asner also made a couple of guest appearance as the lovable Lou on Valerie Harper’s MTM spin-off, “Rhoda.”)

As far as U.S. TV history goes, it also is the only time that a drama grew out of a sitcom.

“Well, it wasn’t that easy,” said Asner, who will be in Charlottesville this weekend. “It has never been done before, and it won’t be done since.

“You can say we had a two-year shakedown cruise, and fortunately CBS didn’t have replacements lined up.”

Asner, who served two years as president of the Screen Actors Guild, was often in the news for his own political views. Some said that might have caused an early cancellation to a drama that was in the Top 10 of the Nielsen ratings.

“The first year we won a lot of awards, so it would look silly to cancel us,” Asner said. “So we got through the second year and we won some more awards, and by then we were beginning to have the gears mesh.

“We lasted another three years.”

Twenty-seven years later, Asner is still combining his talents, this time in “The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial,” a play that will be staged 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Theater.

Asner plays William Jennings Bryan, the man who prosecuted John Thomas Scopes in the famous 1925 trial that pitted creationism against evolution. Drawn from transcripts from Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, the play is rich with the courtroom drama between Bryan and defense attorney Clarence Darrow.

“It is wonderful,” said Asner, who is out on his fourth tour of the L.A. Theatre Works production. “I like it better than ‘Inherit the Wind.’ It deals with the exact problem.”

A problem, that he said, is still an ongoing battle.

“Just in [Tuesday’s] New York Times was the article about the Louisiana legislature passing this bill, which the governor signed with alacrity to introduce, I don’t know if it is an actual course, but to be sure and include the questioning of the veracity of the theory of evolution. It could open the door.

“It allows teachers to use supplemental textbooks in the classroom to help students critique and review scientific theories, supplemental textbooks probably put out by the Intelligent Design organization.”

The debate never stops, he said. In fact, Dr. J. Anderson Thomson Jr., a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia’s Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, will discuss “Darwin: Still on Trial After All These Years” at a 7 p.m. pre-show lecture.

“Texas had a controversy a few weeks ago, which will be resolved in March,” Asner said. “But more conservatives have come aboard, which has created the introduction of Intelligent Design proponents.

“They will be battling it out there. Texas is always important because they dictate what a large section of the country will read, in term of textbooks. The battle never stops.”

But Asner, who played the part of Darrow once, says he prefers the part of the defender of creationism.

“I played Darrow when it was done as a one shot,” he said of a 1992 production in Kansas.

“The Kansas School Board was creating a ruckus and they wanted to bring in creationism and the school board was up for election, and we went out there and performed. That, and other elements, helped create a more moderate school board. So two years later, the conservatives came back in, so it has been yawing back and forth.

“Then we began our tour in ’05, ’06,’ 07, we skipped ’08, and now we are in ’09. And I’ve done Bryan ever since, and I wouldn’t dream of doing Darrow.”

He likes differentiation, especially after rising to fame as Lou Grant.

“You get typecast,” he said. “When you do Lou Grant for 12 years, you are going to be stamped with an indelible dye.

“Even as an actor, when I see somebody who is off the beaten path from him, I have a resistance. But you have to try it. You have to give somebody some idea that you have a range in there.”

From Lou Grant to Capt. Thomas Davies, who kidnapped Kunte Kinte in the landmark miniseries “Roots,” Asner has a range that has earned him seven Emmys and five Golden Globes. Even on the big screen he has starred as everything from a CIA operative in “JFK” to Santa Claus in “Elf.”

“I love doing anything that gets me to use my voice and my imagination,” he said.

He likens himself to a musical instrument.

“The notes the playwright writes,” he said. “I feel if I am cast right, that I will play those notes as well as, if not better, than anybody else. So it really doesn’t matter if it is on the boards or in front of the camera or if it’s over a microphone. I still take great pleasure in putting the meaning into there. I have to employ my body and the final emphasis … but it is still the spoken word.”

In Charlottesville Asner will be joined by Michael Winters, who is playing Darrow.

“He just stepped into the role about a week ago,” Asner said. “He is wonderful. John Heard played it for two weeks and had previous commitments that he had to go back to.

“And we have a bunch of young people. James Gleason, Rob Nagle, Geoffrey Wade. Arye Gross has been on any number of TV shows and TV series. Michael Winters was on ‘The Gilmore Girls’ for about seven years. It’s an excellent cast. The unknowns are as good as the knowns, and I include myself.”

And that, my friends, is saying something.