Remember when Ed Asner stood toe to toe with POTUS Raygun over the PATCO strike?

[Omaha Steve]

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Marta is reading a book on the TV show "Lou Grant". We have been watching the first season on DVD. The actor with that title role was Ed (photo below) Asner.

I had forgotten about this completely. As Screen Actors Guild president Ed denied Raygun the prize he so badly wanted.

Thank you Ed!

OS

Each year, the Screen Actors Guild gives an award ''for outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/25/magazine/battling-it-out-in-hollywood-by-sally-ogle-davis.html?pagewanted=all

BATTLING IT OUT IN HOLLYWOOD; by Sally Ogle Davis
Published: April 25, 1982

More at link. Snip: When Kim Fellner learned that President Reagan was to be the recipient of the 1981 award, she wrote a letter to the national board's executive committee asking them to intervene. Such an award, she said, would alienate the guild from the rest of the labor movement. The board withdrew the prize, although overtures had already been made to the President to see if he could attend the presen-tation. A loud outcry immediately ensued. Charlton Heston called the rescinding of the award ''in the worst possible taste,'' and added that were he president of the guild he would dismiss Kim Fellner.

Asner, whose board has supported him 29 to 4 on most issues, stood by Miss Fellner. Several board members went so far as to accuse Heston of allowing himself to be used as a mouthpiece for the Administration.

''Why,'' asked Heston, ''would the President of the United States concern himself with the problems of the Screen Actors Guild?'' Why indeed? It is a crucial question, the answer to which may explain why a show-business battle has assumed such significance. There is no doubt that the guild's closer identification with the A.F.L.- C.I.O. gives that body increased visibility. As one guild member observes, Lane Kirkland, A.F.L.- C.I.O. president, is ''one of the chief critics of the Reagan Administration, but when Lane Kirkland says something, do people hear as well as when Ed Asner, or some other well-known voice, says it?''

Asner himself has addressed a group of the United Professors of California, and others in the guild have associated themselves with various labor issues. Joan Hackett (''Only When I Laugh'') spoke to the Coalition of Labor Women in San Francisco. Valerie Harper (''Rhoda'') is another of those who have spoken out on women's issues. Jessica Walter (''Play Misty for Me''), vice president of the union, emceed the Labor Solidarity Day rally in Los Angeles. And the Asner-led union has sent a letter in support of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees in Kenosha, Wis., and it has asked actors' guild members not to perform in a Seattle hotel involved in a union dispute.

Ed as Lou.