A comic actress who seems to have been born fraught and confused, Louise Lasser earned her place in TV history playing the title role in the syndicated 1976 late-night soap opera send-up, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", playing the titular put-upon housewife in pigtails to uproarious lengths. The actress left the series after a year and a half due to the "pressure" of the series. (She was also arrested for possession of $6 in cocaine found in her purse, which she said was given to her and thrown in her bag absentmindedly).

The daughter of Sol Lasser, who wrote an annual tax guide for civilians,