Actress Louise Lasser, from the ’70s show “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” has died at age 87.
Lasser’s death at her home on July 6 was confirmed by her friend, Susan Charlotte, The New York Times reported.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, she died of natural causes.
Lasser was born in Manhattan in 1939 but grew up in the Bronx, where she attended Fieldston. She attended Brandeis University, majoring in political science, but dropped out during her senior year to pursue a career in acting, taking lessons with Sanford Meisner.
She worked in theater and cabaret, while also appearing in commercials for NyQuil and Excedrin, earning a Clio Award for her advertising.
She also understudied for Barbara Streisand in “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” on Broadway, taking over the role when Streisand left.
Lasser met Woody Allen while on a double date, and he gave her a role in “The Laughmakers,” a series he was working on. They started dating and were eventually married in 1966.
He cast her in several projects, including “Bananas” and “Take the Money and Run,” among others.
They ended up getting divorced.
But she found her footing in television, starting with guest roles in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Bob Newhart Show” before getting a call from Norman Lear for his show “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”
The show was a parody of soap operas while also being one at the same time, and aired in syndication five nights a week, sometimes during normal soap opera time slots, and sometimes at 11 p.m., Deadline reported.
Her fame was not without trouble. She was arrested for cocaine possession when police found 80 milligrams of it in her bag, which she said was a gift from a fan. She received six months’ probation if she kept seeing a psychiatrist.
Most recently, she was in three episodes of “Girls” on HBO, playing an elderly artist who was rediscovered, the Times reported.
She leaves behind her longtime partner, Michael Citriniti