Louise Lasser, Star of TV's 'Mary Hartman,' Is Dead at 87 [View all]

Source: New York Times

Louise Lasser, Star of TV’s ‘Mary Hartman,’ Is Dead at 87

She began her screen career in Woody Allen movies (he was also her husband), but she was best known for her portrayal of the Ohio housewife in the pigtails and puffed sleeves.

July 7, 2026 Updated 2:11 p.m. ET


Louise Lasser in 1976 as Mary Hartman, the role that made her a household name.John G. Zimmerman Archive, via Everett Collection

Louise Lasser, the deadpan comedic actress who began her screen career in Woody Allen movies and became a star as the wrenchingly sympathetic title character of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Norman Lear’s off-center 1970s comedy, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 87. ... Her death was confirmed by Susan Charlotte, a friend.

“Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” was a phenomenon, a syndicated parody of midcentury soap operas that ran Mondays through Fridays at 11 p.m. Eastern time. It followed a befuddled Ohio housewife as she tried to hold herself together amid mass murders, sex scandals and everyday consumer anxieties. She wore pigtails, puffed sleeves and gingham (while real American women were in Dorothy Hamill bobs and designer denim); fretted about waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor; and was emotionally abused by her conveniently impotent blue-collar husband (Greg Mullavey).

“She’s a survivor,” Ms. Lasser said of her put-upon character in a 1976 interview with The New York Times. “But that makes me sad. Because she’s a survivor in a world I wonder if it’s worth surviving in.” (The character did eventually have a nervous breakdown.)

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Norman Lear, center, in 1976 on the set of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” speaking with Ms. Lasser and her co-star Greg Mullavey.John Bryson/Getty Images

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From left, Ms. Lasser, Mary Kay Place, Debralee Scott and Dody Goodman on “Mary Hartman.”Tandem Productions, via Globe Photos/Zuma Press — Alamy

Articles about the series proliferated, and Ms. Lasser — somehow simultaneously neurotic and girlish — appeared on the covers of major magazines, including People, Newsweek, Ms. and Rolling Stone. The show ran only a year and a half, from January 1976 to July 1977, but that was 325 episodes.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/arts/television/louise-lasser-dead.html