Loretta Swit who played Houlihan on pioneering TV series M.A.S.H dies aged 87
©Press Association
Today at 17:18
Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy Awards playing Major Margaret Houlihan on the pioneering hit TV series M.A.S.H, has died aged 87.
Publicist Harlan Boll said Swit died on Friday at her home in New York City, likely from natural causes.
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RTÉ News
4 days ago
- RTÉ News
M*A*S*H actress Loretta Swit has died aged 87
Loretta Swit, the US actress who brought Major Margaret 'Hot Lips' Houlihan to life in the seminal Korean War comedy series M*A*S*H has died. She was 87. Swit who played the high-strung but flirty Houlihan for the entire TV run of the smash series, was nominated for 10 Emmy awards for her work, winning two of them. Her death, at her home in Manhattan, was announced by her publicist, who said she was believed to have died of natural causes. M*A*S*H, which sprang from an Oscar-winning 1970 film, aired initially in 1972 and was a hit until it finished in 1983. The comedy was set in a field hospital for the US Army during the Korean War, and starred Alan Alda as Benjamin 'Hawkeye' Pierce. The series tackled a range of issues from the tragic to the light-hearted, and was sometimes seen as a satire on US involvement in Vietnam - a war that was still happening when it first began airing. "Few actresses captured the imagination of generations of television viewers with the certainty and charm of Loretta Swit," a statement from publicist Harlan Boll said. "As the quick-witted, impassioned Major Margaret Houlihan... Ms. Swit became an American icon." Alongside an extensive stage repertoire, Swit appeared in over 25 movies, including playing Christine Cagney in the TV movie that became the long-running cop show Cagney and Lacey. Obligations to the makers of M*A*S*H meant she could not continue into the TV series' lengthy run, and the role was ultimately filled instead by Sharon Gless. Other movies during Swit's career included Race With the Devil, a 1975 horror starring Peter Fonda, and 1972's Stand Up and Be Counted with Jacqueline Bisset.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
Loretta Swit: M.A.S.H star known for playing Houlihan dies aged 87
Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy Awards playing Major Margaret Houlihan on the pioneering hit TV series M.A.S.H, has died aged 87. Publicist Harlan Boll said Swit died on Friday at her home in New York City, likely from natural causes. Swit and Alan Alda were the longest-serving cast members on M.A.S.H which was based on Robert Altman's 1970 film, which was itself based on a novel by Richard Hooker, the pseudonym of H Richard Hornberger. The CBS show aired for 11 years from 1972 to 1983, revolving around life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, which gave the show its name. READ MORE The 2½ hour finale on February 28th, 1983, lured more than 100 million viewers, the most-watched episode of any scripted series ever. Rolling Stone magazine put M.A.S.H at No 25 of the best TV shows of all time, while Time Out put it at No 34. It won the Impact Award at the 2009 TV Land annual awards, as well as a Peabody Award in 1975 'for the depth of its humour and the manner in which comedy is used to lift the spirit and, as well, to offer a profound statement on the nature of war'. In Altman's 1970 film, Houlihan was a one-dimensional character – a sex-crazed bimbo who earned the nickname 'Hot Lips'. Cast members from M.A.S.H: William Christopher, Jamie Farr, Loretta Swit, Henry Morgan, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda and William Ogden Stiers. Photograph: Doug Pizac/AP Her intimate moments were broadcast to the entire camp after somebody planted a microphone under her bed. Sally Kellerman played Houlihan in the movie version and Swit took it over for TV, eventually deepening and creating her into a much fuller character. The sexual appetite was played down and she was not called 'Hot Lips' in the later years. The growing awareness of feminism in the 1970s spurred Houlihan's transformation from caricature to real person, but a lot of the change was due to Swit's influence on the scriptwriters. 'Around the second or third year I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes,' Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of The Complete Book of M.A.S.H. 'To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn't go into the next episode as if it were a different character in a different play. She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.' Loretta Swit at the 45th annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 2018. Photograph: Richard Shotwell/Invision via AP Swit appeared in all but 11 episodes of the series, nearly four times longer than the Korean War itself, exploring issues like PTSD, sexism and racism. After the TV series, Swit became a vocal animal welfare activist, selling SwitHeart perfume and her memoir through her official website, with proceeds benefiting various animal-related non-profit groups. In 1983, she married actor Dennis Holahan, whom she had met when he was a guest star on M.A.S.H. They divorced in 1995. Born in Passaic, New Jersey, the daughter of Polish immigrants, Swit enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then paid her dues for years in touring productions. In 1969, she arrived in Hollywood and was soon seen in series such as Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Mission Impossible and Bonanza before she got her big break with M.A.S.H in 1972. – AP
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Irish Independent
Loretta Swit who played Houlihan on pioneering TV series M.A.S.H dies aged 87
©Press Association Today at 17:18 Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy Awards playing Major Margaret Houlihan on the pioneering hit TV series M.A.S.H, has died aged 87. Publicist Harlan Boll said Swit died on Friday at her home in New York City, likely from natural causes.
