Louise Lasser, 1939 – 2026

Eccentric comic actress Louise Lasser, 87, died on July 6. Best-known as the star of the soap parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976-77) and as Woody Allen’s frequent star and muse, Lasser was hard to cast. She never really fit into such sitcoms as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, It’s a Living, Taxi, or Laverne & Shirley. Lasser was a rising young actress and comic when she met Woody Allen; they were married from 1966-70, and she appeared in his Take the Money and Run and Bananas, till she was replaced by Diane Keaton as Allen’s star. Her career thereafter was shaky—Lasser did appear in numerous TV shows and movies, but like other “big” performers, she overpowered most roles. Of her signature role, Mary Hartman, Lasser said, “she's who I would be if I had grown up in a small town and married my high school sweetheart and become a housewife instead of growing up in the big city and becoming an actress and marrying a genius.”