This has been some year for me. An heiress kidnap victim turns bank robber, a Manson girl tries to shoot the President, and America's sort-of TV sweetheart gets busted for cocaine the week after she was Newsweek's cover girl. It's enough to send me back to reading newspapers, to say nothing of what a year for women. (But it's not enough to get me watching that dreadful TV disaster news. The city in which I live fortunately airs Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman at 11:00, not that I need an excuse not to watch Geraldo Rivera. Or doesn't he do news anymore?)

No, I am not vvriting about Mary Hartman, the show. Never in the history of media has so much been written about so little with perhaps the exception of the album Sgt. Pepper. Actually, I watch the show; I even enjoy it, but that's not my point. For years I've thought Louise Lasser to be a very funny,sexy lady. I hope that she'll pull through this ordeal (the best and the stardom and the schedule) okay.

It's a change for me to check out these ladies in TV. There are — let's face it — so few to check out in rock, and roll. Patti Smith is about it for my taste; Joni Mitchell (whose name I never spell right on my typewriter, that should tell me something) wears signature scarves, and Garole King moves to Colorado with a poet. I mean great for them, but for me...yawn. Obviously, people such as myself are moved by underlying tension, a controlled hysteria, a unique character. All this, and more, Louise Lasser has.

Can you ifnagine Mary Tyler Moore or Valerie Harper getting busted for cocaine?? I'm not saying it's a plus. I'm just saying that the raciest thing I've ever heard about Valerie Harper is that she took est (cringe) and that she and her husband don't get to see each other as much as they'd like because of their Careers. Don't get me wrong, I love tihoda, it's just the real Valerie Harper I'm not so sure of. I am less sure about the real Mary Tyler Moore, whose show I also watch religiously. Don't you think sheXcoming on a bit Betty Fordish with all that ballet stuff lately? (Nothing against Betty Ford, but she's no Louise Lasser...)

The point is, Louise Lasser is Louise Lasser.She's real not because she carries cocaine or causes a scpne over a mouse dollhouse in a Beverly - Hills boutique. That stuff is all just the kind of Hollywood scandal we've all known and loved to read about for years) One wonders about her self-destructive tendencies to allow such a thing to happen, but that too is real life.

With the mountains of stuff written about this show, I don't seem to recall too much that said she was sexy. She is. I could care less about what this show says about American society in 1976, or how Mary is a survivor in a world not worth surviving in, or the emptiness of the life of the American housewife. Sgt. Pepper reviews again.

I just like to watch her because the neuroses, the pain, the vulnerability shine through and make her interesting. And the greater all'that stuff is, well, possibly so is the talent. Her spaced-out dizziness (I've seen her a few times in 'real life' and it's exactly the same) is sexy and funny. To be able to be sexy and funny on the TV screen without bearing the responsibility of being a 'sex symbol' is terrific.

A few more things I think about Louise Lasser: Years ago I used to see her out at Fire Island before — I think — she married"Woody Allen. I seem to -recall that she wore that wig with the braids even then, and I wondered why. (I mean how bad could her hair be?? Doesn't she know everyone knows it's a wig?) But she was great-looking, incredibly thin, and that voice was a knockout. She wasn't famous yet,.but I thought she should be.

I noticed Louise Lasser next in that Nyquil commercial. You know how it is, every so often one of those people in a TV commercial gets to you. Alice Playton, with that Marshmallow Fluff, did not. Diane Keaton, with the underarm deodPrant, did. The fact that Lasser has managed to become such a star is so right that it makes one wonder what happened, it's so unlikely. Maybe TV is catching up? And I do not refer to the so-called 'frankness' of the show, or the subject matter. Much of it strikes me as embarrassingly naive, too much of that displaced New York-to-Beverly Hills humor. When I say catch up, I mean by allowing Louise Lasser to be a TV star.

Who else could do three different dead-pans in a row? Or deliver a line like, 'I am standing here in such a state c of confusion,' while sitting. Or, 'Can't I a family have a breakfast like regular g people?' The delivery is brilliant, and o even if it is always the same shtick (it ' has been pointed out to me that it always is, in films as well) I haven't been bored. I also don't care ifjhe cast and crew thinks she's a terrible bitch or if she's re-writing the scripts. The show is better for it, her instinctive acting is always right.

(By the way, Norman Lear is no hero of mine. I occasionally find myself concerned that he's pushing his liberal philosophies on an entire nation who watch his shows. Have you noticed that The Jeffersons and All In the Family are getting closer to Give Us This Day? Only slightly hipper, which makes them only slightly more dangerous. No, it's Louise Lasser I watch Mary Hartman for, not the message.)

I thought the first few shows were awful, but these things often take time to find themselves. Louise Lasser brought me around, and whereas I don't rush home to watch it, I must con-' fess I did once stop a dinner party to turn it on. But then Ahmet Ertegun came into the room and no one watched the TV set anymore,