Louise Lasser was a genuine original who burned bright in the 1970s. The star of the daily, syndicated, soap-comedy Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976 -77), she was probably the first major TV character to suffer a season-long nervous breakdown. Post Nixon, Watergate and Vietnam, she represented what many North Americans were feeling at what was, arguably, an even more chaotic time than today.
Lasser, who died at 87 on July 6, went through her own personal termoil in the early ’60s. Both her parents committed suicide in that decade. Lasser had prevented her mother from doing so in an earlier attempt.
The actress suggested the breakdown of her character to creator-executive producer Norman Lear at the start of the second season. That made her series seem even odder, with poor Mary just staring through many a predicament. An actual arrest for drug possession while purchasing a dollhouse was written into the series. By the third season Lasser left Mary Hartman, which continued by focussing on other characters such as Hartman’s husband (played by Greg Mullavey). A very funny spinoff, Fernwood 2 Night, starred Martin Mull and Fred Willard.
Lasser hosted one of the most notorious episodes of Saturday Night Live, one rarely seen since it first aired. There were reports she tried to quit the night of the episode after a rocky week of rehearsals.
“I remember Louise Lasser on her hands and knees crawling into my office looking for pot,” Neil Levy is quoted as saying in Tom Shales 2002 book “Live From New York.” On the day of the show, she decided she wasn’t going to perform unless a certain sketch was cut. Cast members Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd were prepared and even eager to do the show without her before sketches were modified and she appeared, mainly in sketches she performed alone. Chase went so far as to have Mary Hartman wigs made for the rest of the cast to wear.
During the ’60s, she had an active career, doing improv comedy in Greenwich Villiage coffee shops and backing up Barbra Streisand in the 1962 Broadway musical “I Can Get it for you Wholesale.” She was Woody Allen’s second wife from 1966 to 1970, appearing in several of his films both during and after the marriage, including the early comedies “Bananas” and “Take the Money and Run.” Leading up to Mary Hartman, she guested on such early ’70s hits as The Bob Newhart Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show; after she appeared on Taxi, Laverne & Shirley and St. Elsewhere.”
advertisement
Because her fame and her look were so omnipresent in the ’70s some would be forgiven for feeling Lasser had died many years ago. This despite the fact that she kept working, recurring in Lena Dunham’s Girls in 2013-14 and in the 2022 feature “Funny Pages.”
Just a few years ago, there was talk of a revival of Mary Hartman, with Canadian writer-producer Jacob Tierney (Shoresy, Heated Rivalry) among those involved. The way shows never seem to end but just constantly get revived, Laser’s famous pig tails could yet see a revival in the streaming era.
