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Louise Marie Lasser (born April 11, 1939) is an American actress, television writer, and performing arts teacher and director. She is known for her portrayal of the title character on the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. She was married to Woody Allen and appeared in several of his early films. She is also a life member of The Actors Studio and studied with both Sanford Meisner and Robert X. Modica.

Early life and career beginnings
Born in New York City, Lasser is the only child of Paula Lasser (née Cohen) and Sol Jay Lasser. Her father wrote and published the Everyone's Income Tax Guide series in the 1970s and 1980s. Louise did not fully embrace her Jewish heritage until later in life.

Her mother's emotional instability led to a 1961 suicide attempt that was thwarted by Louise herself. Her mother vowed to never forgive Lasser for her actions, and after divorcing her husband, finally took her own life in 1964. Sol Jay Lasser later also committed suicide.

Lasser studied political science at Brandeis University for three years. She sang 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 also acted on the soap opera The Doctors and in television commercials.

Lasser married Woody Allen in 1966. Although the couple divorced in 1970, she appeared in his films 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 served as a voice actor for Allen's 1966 spoof dubbing of the Japanese spy movie, What's Up Tiger Lily? Lasser cites Allen as "a tremendous influence -- but it's the influence to make me be me....I remember the day he said, 'I do jokes...your comedy is attitude.'"

Her other 1970s comedic turns in cinema include Such Good Friends (1971) and Slither (1973). On television, she earned credits on Love, American Style (1971), The Bob Newhart Show (1972), and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973). 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.