Pre-WJM-TV Although the setting of
The Mary Tyler Moore Show might have implied that he was a native
Minnesotan,
Lou Grant in fact established that he was born in the fictional rural town of Goshen,
Michigan in 1925. He was the son of John Simpson Grant and Ellen Hammersmith Grant; his grandfather was a pharmacist. At some point in his youth and early adulthood he developed a lifelong affection for
westerns, particularly those starring
John Wayne. In high school, he was a
tackle for his school's
football team. Soon after high school, he married
Edie MacKenzie (
Priscilla Morrill), at an age young enough to have four grandchildren before he turned 50. During another phase of his wartime service he was injured by a
grenade in France, the last remnants of which were removed only in his late 40s. He was also part of a unit that liberated an unknown town in Germany. He attended college (although on several occasions he stated he never had the chance to attend), likely after the war. He started his career in print journalism as a copy boy but it is unclear whether this was in Detroit,
WJM-TV At some point in his late 30s he made the transition to broadcast journalism, and by the time of the 1966 elections he was working on a radio news show, as he explained to
Mary Richards on the occasion of her producing her first news show all by herself at WJM-TV. He eventually became the head of the WJM news department. He worked in that capacity for 11 years. He was a heavy drinker, with a penchant for hiding whole bottles of scotch in his desk drawers. Though they reconciled on this occasion, they would occasionally re-separate and seek marriage counseling over the next two years. In about 1973 he and Edie divorced, after which Edie promptly remarried. Lou, who had been consistently portrayed as a devoted husband, tentatively began to date again. He went out with a woman named Charlene (
Sheree North;
Janis Paige in "Menage-a-Lou" of Season 6) in particularly Season 5; Mary's best friend
Rhoda Morgenstern in Season 4; Mary's next-door neighbor, Paula Kovacks (
Penny Marshall) in Season 6; Mary's
Aunt Flo (
Eileen Heckart) in Seasons 6 and 7; and even with Mary herself in the penultimate episode. He and
Sue Ann Nivens had a drunken one-night-stand. Professionally, his career with WJM-TV ended in the final episode. Lou, along with Mary, Murray, and
Sue Ann Nivens, was fired due to low ratings. Lou's sometime-nemesis, the vacuous Ted Baxter—the real cause for the ratings slide—was retained.
Los Angeles Tribune Lou Grant, a spin-off drama from the comedy show
Mary Tyler Moore, opens with Grant relocating to Los Angeles, to work with as City Editor with an old buddy, Charley Hume, who is managing editor of the fictitious
Los Angeles Tribune, His subordinates at that time included staff reporters Joe Rossi (
Robert Walden); Billie Newman (
Linda Kelsey); her predecessor, Carla Mardigian (
Rebecca Balding); and photographer Dennis "Animal" Price (
Daryl Anderson). His assistant city editor was Art Donovan (
Jack Bannon). Charlie Hume was now his boss, who ultimately reported to publisher Margaret Jones Pynchon (
Nancy Marchand). They, like those back at WJM, became his family. In the last episode of season one it is revealed that he has just turned 50, a continuity error from
The Mary Tyler Moore Show; he would have turned 53 in 1978.
Lou Grant was cancelled after the star, Ed Asner, publicly protested U.S. interventions into the politics of Latin American countries. ==Unofficial appearances==