NEW YORK — Loretta Swit, who gained two Emmy Awards taking part in Main Margaret Houlihan, the demanding head nurse of a behind-the-lines surgical unit through the Korean Warfare on the pioneering hit TV sequence “M.A.S.H.,” has died. She was 87.
Publicist Harlan Boll says Swit died Friday at her residence in New York Metropolis, possible from pure causes.
Swit and Alan Alda have been the longest-serving solid members on “M.A.S.H.,” which was based mostly on Robert Altman’s 1970 movie, which was itself based mostly on a novel by Richard Hooker, the pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger.
The CBS present aired for 11 years from 1972 to 1983, revolving round life on the 4077th Cell Military Surgical Hospital, which gave the present its title. The 2-and-a-half-hour finale on Feb. 28, 1983, lured over 100 million viewers, the most-watched episode of any scripted sequence ever.
Rolling Stone journal put “M.A.S.H.” at No. 25 of the most effective TV reveals of all time, whereas Time Out put it at No. 34. It gained the Influence Award on the 2009 TV Land annual awards. It gained a Peabody Award in 1975 “for the depth of its humor and the way during which comedy is used to carry the spirit and, as nicely, to supply a profound assertion on the character of warfare.”
Swit transforms the character of Houlihan
In Altman’s 1970 movie, Houlihan was a one-dimensional character — a prickly, rules-bound head nurse who was frequently plagued by male colleagues, who gave her the nickname “Sizzling Lips.” Her intimate moments have been broadcast to all the camp after any person planted a microphone underneath her mattress.
Sally Kellerman performed Houlihan within the film model and Swit took it over for TV, ultimately deepening and creating her right into a a lot fuller character. Her sexuality was performed down and he or she wasn’t even referred to as “Sizzling Lips” within the later years.
The rising consciousness of feminism within the ’70s spurred Houlihan’s transformation from caricature to actual particular person, however a number of the change was as a result of Swit’s affect on the scriptwriters.
“Across the second or third yr I made a decision to attempt to play her as an actual particular person, in an clever trend, even when it meant hurting the jokes,” Swit informed Suzy Kalter, creator of “The Full E-book of ‘M.A.S.H.'”
“To oversimplify it, I took every traumatic change that occurred in her life and saved it. I did not go into the subsequent episode as if it have been a special character in a special play. She was a personality in fixed flux; she by no means stopped creating.”
“M.A.S.H.” wasn’t an on the spot hit. It completed its first season in forty sixth place, out of 75 community TV sequence, however it nabbed 9 Emmy nominations. It was rewarded with a greater time slot for its sophomore season, paired on Saturday nights with “All within the Household,” then TV’s highest-rated present. On the 1974 Emmys, it was topped greatest comedy, with Alda successful as greatest comedy actor.
The sequence additionally survived regardless of solid churn. Along with Swit and Alda, the primary season featured Wayne Rogers, McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville and Gary Burghoff. Harry Morgan, Mike Farrell and David Ogden Stiers would later be added, whereas Jamie Farr and William Christopher had expanded roles.
“Loretta Swit’s portrayal of Margaret ‘Sizzling Lips’ Houlihan was groundbreaking — bringing coronary heart, humor, and power to certainly one of tv comedy’s most enduring roles. Her expertise prolonged nicely past that iconic character, with acclaimed work on each stage and display screen that showcased her intelligence, versatility, and fervour,” Nationwide Comedy Heart Govt Director Journey Gunderson mentioned in a press release.
‘Extra of an actual particular person’
Swit appeared in all however 11 episodes of the sequence, practically 4 occasions longer than the Korean Warfare itself, exploring points like PTSD, sexism and racism. Swit pushed for a greater illustration for ladies.
“One of many issues I appreciated, with Loretta’s prodding, was each time I had an opportunity to put in writing for her character, we would get away from the Sizzling Lips angle and discover out extra about who Margaret was. She turned extra of an actual particular person,” Alda informed The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.
The sequence ended on a cheerful be aware for Houlihan, who spends a lot of the finale debating whether or not she desires to move to Tokyo or Belgium for her subsequent abroad submit. In the end she opts to return to America and work at a hospital, citing her father — a profession Military man.
Swit did not personally agree that was the proper determination for a military-minded official: “I did not suppose that was appropriate for my Margaret,” she informed Yahoo Leisure in 2023. “I believe her subsequent transfer was Vietnam. So I did not agree with that, however that is what they needed her to do.”
However the actor did get to put in writing the speech that Houlihan delivers to her fellow nurses on their closing night time collectively, during which she says: “It has been an honor and privilege to have labored with you. And I am very, very proud to have recognized you.”
“I used to be consumed with writing that. And I nonetheless get letters from ladies everywhere in the world who turned nurses due to Margaret Houlihan. To have contributed to somebody’s life like that’s exceptional,” she informed Yahoo Leisure.
Throughout her run, Houlihan had an affair with Hawkeye’s foil, the bumbling Frank Burns, performed by Linville within the TV model, and in Season 5, Houlihan returns from a keep in Tokyo engaged to a good-looking lieutenant colonel, a storyline that Swit says she advocated for with the writers.
“I informed them: ‘Are you able to think about what enjoyable you are going to have with Larry after I come again to city and I inform him I am engaged? He’ll rip the doorways off of the mess tent!’ And that is precisely what that they had him do. So we have been the entire identical thoughts.”
Towards the top, Swit was tempted to go away the present. She performed the position of Chris Cagney in a 1981 tv film, “Cagney & Lacey,” and was supplied the half when it was picked up as a midseason sequence for the spring of 1982. However producers insisted she stick with “M.A.S.H.” for its final two seasons.
Swit informed The Florida Instances-Union in 2010 she might need stayed with “M.A.S.H.” anyway. “You possibly can’t assist however get higher as an actor working with scripts like that,” she mentioned. “In the event you’re in one thing that literate, nicely, we obtained spoiled.”
In 2022, James Poniewozik, The New York Instances’s chief tv critic, regarded again on the present and mentioned it held up nicely: “Its mix of madcap comedy and pitch-dark drama — the laughs amplifying the intense stakes, and vice versa — is recognizable in as we speak’s dramedies, from ‘Higher Issues’ to ‘Barry,’ that work within the DMZ between laughter and unhappiness.”
After the TV sequence, Swit turned a vocal animal welfare activist, promoting SwitHeart fragrance and her memoir by means of her official web site, with proceeds benefiting varied animal-related nonprofit teams.
In 1983, she married actor Dennis Holahan, whom she’d met when he was a visitor star on “M.A.S.H.” They divorced in 1995.
Swit was born in New Jersey
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, the daughter of Polish immigrants, Swit enrolled within the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then paid her dues for years in touring productions.
In 1969, she arrived in Hollywood and was quickly seen in sequence equivalent to “Gunsmoke,” “Hawaii 5-O,” “Mission Inconceivable” and “Bonanza.” Then in 1972, she obtained her massive break when she was requested to audition for the position of “Sizzling Lips.”
She would frequently return to theater, starring on Broadway in 1975 in “Similar Time, Subsequent 12 months” and “The Thriller of Edwin Drood” in 1986. She was in “Amorous Crossing,” a romantic comedy, at Alhambra Theatre & Eating in 2010 and in North Carolina Theatre’s manufacturing of “Mame” in 2003.
© Copyright 2025 Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
