“To get to the point where it feels like two friends 
are talking, they need to believe I’m a friend. When 
two lifelong friends talk, they know everything about 
each other and that sense of comfort opens up new 
avenues of conversation.
” 

HELLO, LOU!
Tune into Classic Conversations # 56 and you’ll hear 
a unique side to Ed Asner that takes you way beyond 
his role as Lou Grant, news director and boss to Mary 
Richards on the iconic Mary Tyler Moore Show.
It turns out that Dwoskin spoke to Asner just a few 
months shy of his passing at age 91. At the time of 
the interview, Asner had a memoir out titled: Son of 
a Junkman: My Life from the West Bottoms of Kansas 
City to the Bright Lights of Hollywood.
Shortly into the conversation, Dwoskin asks Asner: 
“What was it like growing up as an Orthodox Jew in 
Kansas City.
” I’ll bet anchorman Ted Baxter didn’t 
know that!
We learn that Asner attended religious school, had a 
bar mitzvah, and his grandfather — a Yiddish scholar 
— made wine for Passover.
Dwoskin digs deeper and learns about a huge con-
spiracy in the Asner family. “There’s a story you tell 
in the book,
” said Dwoskin, “about playing football on 
Kol Nidre, which I assume caused some strife in the 
family.
”
“We were assigned to play Leavenworth, which was 
about 40 miles outside of Kansas City, 30-40 miles, on 
Kol Nidre night. Now, as a Jew you can skip anything, 
but you don’t skip Kol Nidre,
” Asner said. “I was a 
tackle. And there were replacement tackles; the world 
would not collapse if I didn’t play.
”
We come to learn that Asner’s brothers had other 
plans and began strategizing how their younger broth-
er could play without their father finding out. They 
even enlisted their mother for help in the conspiracy. 
Asner ended up playing and his team won, his par-
ticipation “seemingly” under the radar. Playing with a 
pigskin on Kol Nidre, a story for the ages. 
Asner goes on to say that he arrived late at the shul 
for Yom Kippur services the next day. His father, 
who had already been seated in a front row, saw Ed 
come in, at which time he picked up his prayer book 
and moved to the back of the synagogue away from 
his son. The maneuver, Asner tells Dwoskin, made 
it immediately apparent that his father hadn’t been 
fooled. The gridiron jig was up. Ed Asner’s Day of 
Atonement was getting off to a rough start.
Good news, there was some measure of reconcil-
iation when, at the end of the service, Asner’s father 
made his way up to the front of the synagogue to col-
lect his belongings.
“My father came up to the front to collect his stuff. 
My brother went to embrace him. My father took the 
embrace. I, being the propagator of this offense, well, 
I’ve got to touch him somehow,
” said Ed looking for 
any form of forgiveness. “So, I kind of chugged my 

way into his arms and gave him a hug.
” Apparently, 
it was enough in young Ed Asner’s eyes that he “had 
overcome the disgrace of playing on Kol Nidre night.
”

KIBITZING WITH KLEIN
Jeff Dwoskin counts among his favorite interviews 
Classic Conversations #146, an extremely entertaining 
banter with the Jewish comedian, actor, singer, Robert 
Klein. 
Klein could have rested on his laurels as one of the 

top standup comics in the 1970s, twice earning him 
Grammy nominations for Best Comedy Album, which 
led to nine HBO specials through the years. But his 
versatility eventually led him to becoming a decades-
long accomplished actor and singer on television, film 
and Broadway, which garnered him Emmy and Tony 
Award nominations. 
In seeking to find out the origins of Klein’s humor. 
Dwoskin refers to a 2016 documentary about the 
comedian called Robert Klein Still Can’t Stop His Leg. 
“In the documentary, Jerry Seinfeld said that you ‘were 
the Beatles of comedy to him,
’ crediting you with start-
ing a whole new way of comedy,
’” Dwoskin said. “Who 
were your inspirations when you were starting to say, 
OK, I’m starting to create my voice.
” It’s a journey with 
deep Jewish roots. 
“I saw live comedy for the first time in the Catskill 
Mountains, the so-called Borscht Belt,
” Klein said. 
“When my father had a good year, we’
d spend two 
weeks in a crummy little broken-down hotel and a live 
comedian came, and he made everyone laugh. And 
that was fun.
” 
“
And you were a busboy there,
” Dwoskin asks, look-
ing for more background of that simpler time.
“I was a busboy, lifeguard and a day camp counselor 
in the Catskills,
” Klein said. “But I never played it as 
a performer until I was, quote, unquote, a star, at top 
places like the Concord and Kutsher’s.
”
The Klein podcast is a virtual who’s who of comedy 
with Kevin sharing in intimate detail stories about his 
friendships and admiration for Rodney Dangerfield, 
Richard Pryor and George Carlin to name a few. He 
looks back fondly when giving credit to a young come-
dian by the name of Joan Rivers for giving him the 
idea to record his standup bits to listen back to refine 
his act. (Dwoskin talks to Melissa Rivers in Classic 
Conversations #188.) 
Simply put, Dwoskin’s Classic Conversations episode 
with Robert Klein is a virtual encyclopedia of comedy.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY
Classic Conversations #308 hits close-to-home for Jeff 
Dwoskin, literally. Turns out his guest, Southfield 
native Stan Zimmerman — prolific producer, director 
and screenwriter — grew up within a couple of miles 
of Jeff.
 Perhaps Zimmerman’s name doesn’t ring a bell, 
but once you get caught up with his creative journey 
in this podcast, you’ll never forget this local, self-de-
scribed “gawky” Jewish boy makes good story. 
Zimmerman was promoting his book at the time 
of the podcast: The Girls from Golden to Gilmore — 
Stories about the wonderful women I’ve worked with. As 
the title of his book implies, Zimmerman has written 
for some of the most beloved television shows in histo-
ry — The Golden Girls and The Gilmore Girls. 
“In my basement in Southfield is where it all began,
” 
Zimmerman tells Dwoskin about where early on, he 

Ed Asner

GAGE SKIDMORE

Robert Klein

20TH CENTURY FOX

continued on page 52

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