Loretta Swit Dies: The ‘M*A*S*H' Emmy Award Winner Was 87
Born November 4, 1937 in Passaic, New Jersey, Loretta Swit began her career as an actress Off-Broadway in the Actor's Playhouse production of An Enemy of the People. In 1961, Swit landed a role in the Circle in the Square production of The Balcony and later toured with the national company of Ash Wednesday. Additionally, she played on of the Pidgeon sisters in the theater in The Odd Couple, among other roles on stage.
Prior to M*A*S*H, Swit's early roles on television included episodes of Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, Gunsmoke and Bonanza. In 1972 came M*A*S*H, which ultimately changed her career but started out slowly. After a low-rated inaugural season, CBS moved M*A*S*H to the cushy Saturday 8:30 p.m. time period out of the then top-rated show in primetime, All in the Family, and into The Mary Tyler Moore Show. M*A*S*H only aired on Saturday one season, but was able to stand on its own by season three. It ran for 11 seasons, rising to No. 3 over in that final season.
During her tenure M*A*S*H, Swit acted in other projects, including films Freebie and the Bean (1974) and Race With the Devil (1975) and BoardHeads (1998), but perhaps her greatest acting achievement was as the original Christine Cagney opposite Tyne Daly as Mary Beth Lacey in the 1981 TV movie/pilot for Cagney & Lacey. Swit was interested in continuing in the series, but was contracted to M*A*S*H. After Meg Foster played Cagney in the six-episode abbreviated first season, Sharon Gless took over the role.
Swit's other film roles included agent Polly Reed in Blake Edwards' satire of Hollywood in S.O.B. in 1981 and Play the Flute, her final role, in 2019.
Swit was also an animal activist, serving on the boards of Actors and Others for Animals and The Wildlife Waystation and as a spokesperson for the Humane Society. In 2016, she founded SwitHeart Animal Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to ending animal cruelty.
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