Louise Lasser (born April 11, 1939) is an American actress, television writer, and performing arts teacher and director.

Her later roles include black comedy films such as Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998) and Owen Kline's Funny Pages (2022).

[5] She began her career acting in Greenwich Village coffee shops and bars and performed in improvisational revues before understudying Barbra Streisand as "Miss Marmelstein" in the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale.

She acted in numerous Woody Allen films including his early 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).

She also appeared in the 1973 TV-movie version of Ingmar Bergman's The Lie and was featured as Elaine in an episode of the NBC romantic anthology series Love Story.

Some markets aired it at different times of the day and night and also in a block format which showcased all the week's episodes in a row.

In his biography, producer Norman Lear said that the casting of Lasser took less than a minute after Charles H. Joffe told him that there was only one actress to play the part of Mary Hartman.

Lear says that "when she read a bit of the script for me, I all but cried for joy ... Louise brought with her the persona that fit Mary Hartman like a corset.

Her performance is best known for her opening monologue in which she re-creates a Mary Hartman-esque nervous breakdown and locks herself in her dressing room.

[10] Chase accused her of "solipsism", and SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue called her "clinically berserk" and allegedly walked off that week's installment in disgust.

O'Donoghue did concede that Lasser "was a nice woman going through a few problems, but I wanted to force her to eat her goddamn pigtails at gunpoint.

[12] Lasser also asserts that her SNL antics, which include stream-of-consciousness rambling (typical of her Mary Hartman character), were "on purpose" and that Lorne Michaels pulled repeats of the broadcast only at her manager's request because her manager was not fond of the whole affair, including the final segment in which the actress sat onstage to discuss her rise to fame and the dollhouse incident.

Lasser and Chase appear as lovers in an Ingmar Bergman parody; plus, the pair filmed a sequence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention (although the footage was never aired).

Instead, there is a video short in a diner in which she and her partner, played by Alan Zweibel, try to break up but forget their lines; in the end, Lasser moves to the bar and sits next to Michael Sarrazin.

[2] She had a recurring role as Alex's ex-wife on the hit series Taxi and starred in the 1981–82 season of It's a Living, in which she played waitress Maggie McBurney.

Her 1980s film appearances included Stardust Memories (1980), In God We Tru$t (1980), Crimewave (1985), Blood Rage (1987), Surrender (1987), Rude Awakening (1989) and as the mother of the main character in Sing (1989).

Chris Feil of The Daily Beast wrote, "Louise Lasser makes for what is surely the most hilariously bizarre, yet downright frightening one-scene-wonder".

[2] In the spring of 1976 in Los Angeles, Lasser was arrested at a charity boutique, and police found $6 worth (88 milligrams) of cocaine in her purse.

Lasser was initially apprehended for two unpaid traffic tickets (one for jaywalking), but the officers then found the drug in her handbag.

[15] As author Claire Barliant writes: "For some, the 1970s...was a descent into chaos, a dissolution of self, but also a kind of awakening....The Seventies' nervous breakdown coincides with women's lib and a strengthening gay rights movement....[Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman] is relevant today because it entertains but still shocks, because the social commentary and satire and bravery of the show are as fresh as ever.