Loretta Swit Dead: Hot Lips Houlihan on 'MASH' Was

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Loretta Swit, who played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on seminal TV comedy “MASH,” died Friday at her home in New York City. She was 87.

Her rep Harlan Boll said the New York police reported her time of death at 12:01 p.m. on May 30, of suspected natural causes.
For her work on “MASH” Swit was Emmy nominated for outstanding performance by a supporting actress in a comedy every year from 1974-83, winning the Emmy in 1980 and 1982.

As “MASH” evolved over its 11-year run from a broadly farcical satire into a more contemplative series that embraced drama as much as comedy, the character of Margaret Houlihan and the way Swit performed it changed markedly as well. She was, at first, a crudely drawn villain allied with the weasel Frank Burns who existed to be object of derision and of practical jokes by Hawkeye and Trapper John.

The first step in her evolution came with the season four episode “Mail Call Again,” in which Margaret realizes what Frank is, at least up to a point, after Frank’s wife finds out about Margaret and he lies about it.

With the season five episode “Bug Out,” in which most of the personnel evacuate, leaving only Hawkeye, Margaret and Radar to take care of a patient that can’t be moved, viewers began to respect her professionally and a human side came through.

The best moment in Swit’s long tenure as Houlihan, however, came a few episodes later with the one called “The Nurses.” In this episode the nurses under Major Houlihan keep a secret from her — they contrive to allow one nurse and her new husband to spend the night together — but in the end Margaret finds out, culminating in a speech in which she emotionally declares how she’s always felt ostracized by them — how they’ve never so much as offered her “a lousy cup of coffee.” In the words of one “MASH” fan site, “She lets them know why she’s always so mean to them, in a speech that’s both riveting and heartbreaking.”

Another key moment came in season six when Margaret and Hawkeye were trapped in a hut amid rain and shelling by the enemy; amid the trauma, they sleep together — ultimately, in Swit’s own opinion, ending the long-lasting enmity between the two characters.

Reviewing her character’s position and evolution on “MASH,” Swit once said, “I mean, certain things had to remain the same. She had to remain one of the antagonists because that was the structure of the show. In the second season, we saw for the first time that she was unhappy with Frank and wanted more from her life. Then around the third or fourth year, in an episode called ‘The Nurses,’ Hot Lips gave the nurses a speech telling them how lonely she was because she was in charge and that’s the way it was, so she couldn’t really have any friends. Her marriage and her divorce changed her. Her affair with Hawkeye in ‘Comrades in Arms’ changed both characters, so that they were never really rivals again.”

Swit appeared as Major Houlihan (and Larry Linville appeared as Frank Burns) on the 1975 variety special “Rickles,” starring insult comedian Don Rickles.
After the end of the show, the actress starred in the popular, Emmy-nominated 1983 telepic “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” in which she played a teacher who puts the worst students in the school’s holiday pageant. She went to star in a long series of TV movies, including 1985’s “The Execution,” and guested on shows ranging from “The Love Boat” to “Murder, She Wrote,” making her final television appearance in a 1998 episode of “Diagnosis Murder.”

In 1985 she starred with Rip Torn in the feature comedy “Beer,” with Swit first-billed; three years she played President Barbara Adams in “Whoops Apocalypse,” a feature adaptation of a dark political comedy on British TV. The actress also had roles in the 1996 Chuck Norris film “Forest Warrior” and last appeared in the 1998 comedy “Beach Movie.”
Swit was born Loretta Jane Szwed in Passaic, New Jersey, to Polish immigrant parents who were far from encouraging about a career in show business, but she could not be deterred, performing onstage for the first time at the age of 7. She trained as a singer at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and studied acting with Gene Frankel in Manhattan.

The actress made her smallscreen debut in 1969 with the first of several appearances on “Hawaii Five-O” followed by guest appearances in 1970 on “Mission: Impossible,” “Mannix” and “Gunsmoke” and then “Bonanza,” “Ironside” and “Love, American Style” in the next few years.

Swit made her feature debut in the 1972 battle-of-the-sexes comedy “Stand Up and Be Counted,” starring Jacqueline Bisset.

Even after being cast in “MASH,” Swit continued with other work both in film and TV, appearing in Richard Rush’s 1974 action comedy “Freebie and the Bean,” in which she was third-billed after Alan Arkin and James Caan, and in the 1975 Peter Fonda car chase movie “Race With the Devil.”

On TV she made use of her musical talents in an adaptation of the campy Man of Steel musical “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman!” in 1975.

In the late ’70s she appeared in a series of TV movies, and she had a supporting role in Blake Edwards’ 1981 comedy “S.O.B.” Also in 1981 she appeared in the pilot for CBS cop drama “Cagney & Lacey” as Christine Lacey, but Fox would not let her out of her “MASH” contract and she was replaced by Sharon Gless when the show was picked up to series.
Swit also did theater, touring with the national company of “Any Wednesday,” starring Gardner McKay, in 1967, and played one of the Pigeon sisters in a Los Angeles run of “The Odd Couple” starring Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine.

The actress made her Broadway debut in 1975 as a replacement in “Same Time, Next Year,” starring opposite Ted Bessell. She returned to the Rialto as a replacement in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” in the mid-’80s. She also played Agnes Gooch in a Las Vegas production of “Mame” that starred Susan Hayward and then Celeste Holm, later playing the title character in a North Carolina Theatre production in 2003. The actress also toured with “The Vagina Monologues.”

Swit was married to actor Dennis Holahan from 1983 until their divorce in 1995.
Swit was heavily involved with animal rights organizations, and founded the SwitHeart Animal Alliance to raise money for animals. She was honored by with the Betty White Award from Actors and Others for Animals and by numerous other animal organizations.