The actress was also known for appearing in several early Woody Allen films during and after their four-year marriage
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NEED TO KNOW
- Louise Lasser has died
- The Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman star was 87
- She died on Monday, July 6, at her New York City home, The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter report
Louise Lasser, the Emmy-nominated actress who starred in the soap opera Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, has died. She was 87.
Lasser died of natural causes on Monday, July 6, at her New York City home, her friend Susan Charlotte confirmed to The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter. Variety also confirmed the news.
Best known for her work in the Norman Lear satirical soap, which ran from 1976 to 1977, Lasser’s career also extended to Broadway, hosting Saturday Night Live and appearing in multiple early films from ex-husband Woody Allen, who she was married to from 1966 to 1970.
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Lasser was born in Manhattan on April 11, 1939, and made her Broadway debut in I Can Get It for You Wholesale in 1962.
After meeting Allen in the early ‘60s, she began to appear in several of his projects, notably with a voice role in 1966’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? and appearing in 1969’s Take the Money and Run, 1971’s Bananas, and 1972’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know…
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On television, she made appearances on The Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and hosted a 1976 episode of SNL. In 1976, she made her debut in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which followed a pigtail-wearing Ohio woman who continuously found herself in bizarre circumstances. Lasser played the lead character, while the show also starred Greg Mullavey, Mary Kay Place and Graham Jarvis.
“I think it’s a really good show, I always thought it was a really good show because it touches so many aspects of everything,” she told Interview Magazine in 2013. “It’s sort of up and down and in and out, and before you know it, there you are. And then it itched such rich subjects, do you know what I mean? People always say it’s way ahead of its time. I never thought it was ahead of its time. I always thought it was of its time.”
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Lasser, who appeared on the cover of PEOPLE in July 1976, later appeared on television through appearances in Laverne & Shirley, Taxi and St. Elsewhere. In 2014, she made her debut on HBO’s Girls for a three-episode stint as a woman named Beadie. Her later-career films included 2000’s Requiem for a Dream and 2022’s Funny Pages.
Lasser is survived by her partner, Michael Citriniti.
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