text: 1980s Kellerman began the decade as Mary, a divorced middle-aged suburban mother struggling to raise her rebellious daughter (Jodie Foster) in Adrian Lyne's Foxes (1980); Martha, a six-times-married eccentric, in Bill Persky's Serial, and the silly-but-sophisticated Mrs. Liggett in Jack Smight's Loving Couples. Her later roles included Mary, a child psychiatrist in a sadomasochistic relationship with a psychology professor (Stephen Lackman) after they meet by accident (literally) in Michael Grant's Head On, and a 1920s socialite in Kirk Browning's made-for-television film adaptation of Dorothy Parker's 1929 short story Big Blonde (both 1980). From October 3 to November 15, 1980, Kellerman starred as Julia Seton in an Ahmanson Theatre production of Philip Barry's Holiday (directed by Robert Allan Ackerman) with Kevin Kline, Maurice Evans, and Marisa Berenson.
  On February 7, 1981, Kellerman hosted Saturday Night Live, appearing in four sketches ("Monologue", "The Audition", "Was I Ever Red", and "Lean Acres") and closing the show with Donna Summer's "Starting Over Again". Kellerman's next performances were in made-for-television films. She played the title character's first wife, Maxine Cates, in Dempsey and a honky-tonk dance-hall proprietress in September Gun. That year she also appeared in a stage production, Tom Eyen's R-rated spoof of 1940s women's prison films Women Behind Bars. Kellerman played Gloria, a tough inmate who controls the other prisoners.