Louise Lasser for starring as the neurotic, unhappy housewife Mary Hartman in the serialized satire "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" appearing on the covers of "Newsweek", "People", and "Rolling Stone" during the run of the show. "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" aired five nights a week for two seasons from 1976-1977. In his autobiography, producer Norman Lear says that the casting of Lasser took less than a minute after Charles H. Joffe told him there was only one actress to play the part of Mary Hartman and Lear met the former Mrs. Woody Allen. Lasser refused the role at first. Of the casting process,
S Bannister S Bannister S Bannister (born 1787) was an early British equestrian performer and tightrope walker. Bannister was born in 1787. She was the daughter of James Bannister and she had a sister named Mary. Her father was one of the first people to take a circus on tour in Britain. When his equestrian show arrived in Stamford in 1804 she was with him. She and the circus toured in Scotland and Northern England until her father went bankrupt (he later died in 1836). Her riding and tightrope skills however were said to create "much celebrity" and she went to work