Louise Lasser, star of soapy TV satire 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,' dies at 87

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Set us as preferred Louise Lasser, the star of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Norman Lear’s satirical soap opera, has died.She was 87.Lasser’s friend Susan Charlotte confirmed to the New York Times the actor’s death on Monday in Manhattan.Lasser was born in New York City on April 11, 1939, to parents Sol Jay Lasser, a tax specialist, and Paula Lasser, a designer.

She attended Brandeis University, where she majored in political science and performed in musicals and cabaret.She dropped out her senior year to pursue acting.“My career started almost too easy,” she told the Times in 1975.

“In New York the first agent I met sent me on my first audition, and I was signed for a show-stopping part [a replacement for Barbra Streisand in ‘I Can Get It for You Wholesale’].After that there was a flood of offers.”She told the Times that she found it frightening to hit it big with such little training.“I had to feel prepared,” she said.

So, she studied under actor and acting teacher Sanford Meisner and worked hard.“I feel so strongly that what is worth doing is worth doing the very best you can.But it’s so important to know what you want to do.

How you can develop your potentials to the highest, live your life to the richest and fullest.”Lasser joked in a 1976 article in the Times that her role as Mary Hartman might merit identification beyond being Woody Allen’s ex-wife.The two met in 1962 on a double date — with other people — but their chemistry was potent, and they began working together on various projects, including in her first project for television, “The Laughmakers,” an unaired pilot penned by Allen.

“When we met, I was seeing a friend of his.It was one of those things, well if you think you’re complicated, you should meet so-and-so.

And it was Woody,” Lasser told the Toast in a ...