Posted on 05/30/2025 12:50:21 PM PDT by DFG
Loretta Swit, the actress and animal activist forever known for her pioneering turn as the disciplined Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the acclaimed CBS sitcom M*A*S*H, has died. She was 87.
According to a police report, Swit died just after midnight Friday of suspected natural causes at her home in New York City, her publicist, Harlan Boll, announced.
Swit won two Emmys for her portrayal of the Army nurse — she was nominated 10 times, every year the show was on the air except the first — and appeared on 240 of the series’ 251 episodes during its sensational 11-season run.
Adapting the character from Sally Kellerman‘s film portrayal of the lusty powerhouse, Swit was one of only two actors (along with Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce) to have a role in both the pilot and series finale of M*A*S*H.
That finale, which aired Feb. 28, 1983, attracted a record of nearly 106 million viewers, and a 35-second kiss between Swit and Alda during that episode has been called the most expensive in television history, based on its length and the ad revenue per minute.
As a tough, by-the-book major, Swit’s Houlihan was a rare strong woman on television. “She was [unique] at the time and in her time, which was the ’50s, when [the Korean War] was happening,” Swit said in a 2004 discussion for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews: An Oral History of Television.
“And she became even more unique, I think, because we allowed her to continue to grow — we watched her evolve. I don’t think that’s ever been done in quite that way.”
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
As far as I know, that was her only acting role.
RIP “Major”.
My sister was working in the Reservations Office at AA and when she took the next call in the queue and booked a flight for Her years ago.
In the mid 90’s Alda was doing a science or nature show about oceans. He and his crew showed up for a day on Monterey Bay to ‘document’ our use of a remotely operated submarine to study critters and stuff. The boat we used was a refitted mud boat from Louisiana and had a round bottom, no keel. It was named the Pt. Lobos and nicknamed ‘Pt. Puke’. Alda spent the day on the rail and earned the title of sickest passenger to date.
I never watched it either. I couldn’t stand Alan Alda.
Of course Hot Lips was a slut, at least in the early going. And the show relentlessly ridiculed her sexual behavior, although it always did give her credit as a superb nurse.
Having the character evolve over the years was an interesting piece of work by the showrunners. All long-running shows face this problem. Characters get stale quickly if left static. Clowns especially get old fast.
The Hot Lips-Frank Burns infatuation was a funny enough joke, but the gag quickly wore thin and even Frank developed into a somewhat sympathetic character before he went home. And when he departed, Hot Lips had to evolve fast. The alternative would have been for her to rotate back home as well and bring in a new head nurse with a different character arc.
In general, I thought the show handled this aspect pretty well. The biggest problem by the end was Alan Alda, and his biggest problem was simply that his character was far past its sell-by date and was stale and boring.
Most of the MASH characters were replaced over the run of the show. In some respects, it’s easier for a supporting actor to stick around for a long time because he can be put on the backburner from time to time, showing up as a minor background character and taking center stage only on rare occasions. Alan Alda was almost always on point, and he wore out his welcome.
My dad was an Army doc in Korea. He was in a base hospital in Seoul, not a MASH unit, but he hated the show because he thought it presented the Army Medical Corps unfavorably. I didn’t argue with him about it — everyone is entitled to his own opinion — but I thought he was wrong about that. Most of the people — doctors, nurses, Radar and the other support people, the Army psychiatrist who shows up from time to time, the chaplain, etc. — were very sympathetically played. Of course some were played for laughs; it was a comedy show.
The evolution of large ensemble casts in long-running shows is interesting. I’m sure all of us will have favorite examples. By the end of the Mary Tyler Moore show, for example, even Ted Baxter — still a pompous blowhard — is a sympathetic character. But such a show needs its Ted Baxters and Hot Lips Houlihans to bear the brunt of the jokes and make everyone else look good, or at least better.
If MASH were being made today, I shudder to think how Hollywood would play Hot Lips. She would probably be Woman Triumphant, gender fluid, a better surgeon than the surgeons, and totally promiscuous in a sex positive way. And she would be completely boring.
You mean”...the sultry bitch with the fire in her eyes! Take her clothes off and bring her to me!” That Kellerman ?
I never really liked the show as it was left wing. They made fun of the military but I couldn’t ever see them making a similar show making fun of the welfare bureaucracy.
RIP LS
Frank Burns eats worms. RIP Hot Lips
Yeah, it jumped the shark, they ruined her character and it became the Alan Alda show. That seems to be the norm when series run too long...and run out of ideas.
They were both political activist that et ot bleed into their characters.
Of course Dragnet
Hawkeye: “Frank, last night we took a pint of your blood.”
Hot Lips: “You took his WHAAAAT?”
Or the episode where she gets drunk with Hawkeye and Trapper when Frank declares the camp dry.
She was an icon of Americana.
Depressing news.
“Of course Dragnet” — dang! How could I have forgotten that one!?
“pretty girl somewhere in there.”
When she came down the stairs in the skimpy negligee! Yowsah!
My Dad served in Korea from August 4th, 1950 until late December of 1952. He was attached to the 24th inf div, 8th Army. He watched a few episodes of M.A.S.H when it first aired. After the first few episodes he would get up and leave the room when it started. He thought it was an insult to those who served in Korea and Vietnam. He served 27 years. Drafted in 1940, served in 3 Wars, 4 if you include the Cold War and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
My dad was in the European theater in WW2
He did the same with Hogan’s Heroes.
“This show should have closed its doors after XXX and YYY were killed or left. The latter years were just tired rehashing old story lines but with new targets.”
That sums up SO many good shows after five or six seasons. The writers just exhaust themselves.
I’m watching all the “Death Valley Days” and “Tales of Wells Fargo” shows. Death Valley had a good run - 18 years.
Indeed!
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