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,
David Lasser Socialists and Lasser was elected president of the Workers Alliance. Herbert Benjamin, head of the Communist Unemployed Councils, became Vice President of the Alliance. In 1939 Lasser resigned from the Workers Alliance, claiming that it was Communist dominated. Even so, the U.S. Congress passed legislation specifically banning Lasser by name from employment by the federal government. He then served as economics and research director of the International Union of Electrical Radio and Machine Workers until his retirement in 1969. Lasser's leadership of the Workers Alliance brought him under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a possible subversive. His