Louise Lasser

Louise Lasser, born April 11, 1939, in New York City, is an American actress, television writer, and performing arts teacher and director. The only child of Paula Lasser and Sol Jay Lasser, she grew up in New York, where her father authored and published the Everyone's Income Tax Guide series during the 1970s and 1980s. Lasser studied political science at Brandeis University for three years before pursuing a performance career, beginning in Greenwich Village coffee shops and bars and participating in improvisational revues. She is a life member of The Actors Studio and trained with both Sanford Meisner and Robert X. Modica.

Lasser made her Broadway debut in 1962 with the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale, in which she understudied Barbra Streisand in the role of Miss Marmelstein. Her Broadway career, which spanned from 1962 to 1974, also included The Chinese, the musical Henry, Sweet Henry, and the play Thieves. During this period she also worked in television commercials and appeared on the soap opera The Doctors.

Her screen career developed significantly through her association with Woody Allen, to whom she was married from 1966 until 1970. She contributed voice work to Allen's 1966 spoof dubbing of the Japanese film Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi, released as What's Up Tiger Lily?, and went on to appear in his slapstick comedies Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972). Her other film work in the early 1970s included Such Good Friends (1971) and Slither (1973). On television she accumulated credits on Love, American Style (1971), The Bob Newhart Show (1972), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973), and the 1973 adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's The Lie, as well as an appearance as Elaine in an episode of the NBC anthology series Love Story.

The role that brought Lasser widespread recognition was the title character in the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, which aired five nights a week from January 1976 through July 1977. During the show's run she appeared on the covers of Newsweek, People, and Rolling Stone. Producer Norman Lear, in his biography, recounted that casting Lasser took less than a minute after Charles H. Joffe identified her as the only actress for the part. Lasser initially declined the role before agreeing to take it, and she later contributed creatively to the series, including writing a twelve-page letter to Lear proposing the idea for Mary's nervous breakdown at the end of the first season. After two seasons and 325 episodes, she departed the series, which was subsequently retitled Forever Fernwood and continued for an additional 26 weeks. Her performance earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

On July 24, 1976, Lasser hosted Saturday Night Live during the first season's penultimate episode. Her appearance is particularly remembered for an opening monologue in which she recreated a Mary Hartman-esque nervous breakdown and locked herself in her dressing room, before being coaxed out by Chevy Chase. Following her departure from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, she wrote the made-for-TV movie Just Me and You (1978) and starred in it alongside Charles Grodin. She also took on a recurring role as Alex's ex-wife in the television series Taxi and made guest appearances on Laverne and Shirley and St. Elsewhere. Her post-Mary Hartman stage work included A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking and Marie and Bruce (1980).

In later decades Lasser appeared in the black comedy films Happiness (1998), directed by Todd Solondz, and Funny Pages (2022), directed by Owen Kline. From 2013 to 2014 she portrayed the character Beadie in the Lena Dunham-created HBO series Girls.