Loretta Swit, the actress and animal activist ceaselessly identified for her pioneering flip because the disciplined Maj. Margaret “Sizzling Lips” Houlihan on the acclaimed CBS sitcom M*A*S*H, has died. She was 87.
In line with a police report, Swit died simply after midnight Friday of suspected pure causes at her house in New York Metropolis, her publicist, Harlan Boll, introduced.
Swit gained two Emmys for her portrayal of the Military nurse — she was nominated 10 occasions, yearly the present was on the air besides the primary — and appeared on 240 of the collection’ 251 episodes throughout its sensational 11-season run.
Adapting the character from Sally Kellerman‘s movie portrayal of the lusty powerhouse, Swit was one in all solely two actors (together with Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce) to have a task in each the pilot and collection finale of M*A*S*H.
That finale, which aired Feb. 28, 1983, attracted a document of practically 106 million viewers, and a 35-second kiss between Swit and Alda throughout that episode has been referred to as the most costly in tv historical past, based mostly on its size and the advert income per minute.
As a tricky, by-the-book main, Swit’s Houlihan was a uncommon robust girl on tv. “She was [unique] on the time and in her time, which was the ’50s, when [the Korean War] was taking place,” Swit said in a 2004 dialogue for the TV Academy Basis web site The Interviews: An Oral Historical past of Tv.
“And she or he grew to become much more distinctive, I believe, as a result of we allowed her to proceed to develop — we watched her evolve. I don’t suppose that’s ever been carried out in fairly that approach.”
Bolstered by her M*A*S*H fame, Swit carried out in various motion pictures, together with Freebie and the Bean (1974), Race With the Satan (1975) and BoardHeads (1998). She additionally was hilarious as Polly Reed, a Sue Mengers-type agent, in Blake Edwards‘ satire of Hollywood, S.O.B. (1981).
Swit starred alongside Tyne Daly on the 1981 pilot for Cagney & Lacey, however due to contractual obligations to M*A*S*H, she couldn’t proceed when the cop collection was picked up by CBS a yr later. After Meg Foster performed Cagney within the six-episode first season, Sharon Gless took over the function.
Energetic in theater, Swit starred as one of many daffy Pigeon sisters throughout the L.A. run of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple that starred Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine because the ill-matched roommates.
In 1967, she starred in a nationwide tour of Any Wednesday with Gardner McKay. Eight years later, she made her Broadway debut in Similar Time, Subsequent 12 months reverse Ted Bessell (That Lady). She additionally performed on Broadway in The Thriller of Edwin Drood.
Loretta Jane Szwed was born on Nov. 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey. She studied on the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and carried out in repertory.
Swit moved to Los Angeles in 1970 and landed TV gigs on such collection as Mission: Unimaginable, Mannix, Gunsmoke and Hawaii 5-O and within the girls’s lib movie Stand Up and Be Counted (1972). These components led to Swit being thought of for M*A*S*H, produced by Fox.
“I had carried out a guest-starring function [in the premiere episode in 1971] on Glenn Ford’s CBS collection, Cade’s County, which was short-lived, but it surely was an exquisite function,” she stated. “The community folks, in addition to Fox, knew about me, and when the half got here up, they considered me.”
Swit at all times pushed for Houlihan to develop in maturity and complexity. Her character minimize off her affair with the “lipless surprise” Frank Burns (Larry Linville) to marry a soldier she may very well be happy with (Lt. Col. Donald Penobscott, although they shortly divorced) and revealed her vulnerability to these below her command within the season-five episode “The Nurses.”
“She was the top nurse, and her ambition was to be the very best rattling nurse in Korea, and I attempted to assist her obtain that,” Swit recalled. However in “The Nurses,” Houlihan’s conflicted relationship with authority comes into focus when, in a memorable monologue, she confronts her subordinates for not together with her.
“That girl was so lonely, and she or he was attempting to do such a great job. And no one appreciated her,” Swit recalled in a THR oral historical past that marked the present’s thirty fifth anniversary.
“Gene [Reynolds, the show’s executive producer] referred to as me the subsequent morning after capturing it and stated they’d watched the dailies, and my scene was final. When the lights went up, everybody was sniffling,” she stated. “He requested the projectionist to run the scene once more. The lights exit they usually watched it once more. The lights go up and everybody’s nonetheless crying. He says to everybody, ‘Is that the very best factor you ever noticed?’”
Swit was capable of carry these sorts of dramatic moments along with her character all through the collection. “I used to be allowed to proceed to develop,” she stated. “I didn’t bounce again to the place I used to be earlier than you noticed this occur to her.”
She famous that the forged was tight-knit from the very begin, and issues bought emotional once they shot the finale. One particularly touching second comes when Swit and Harry Morgan (Col. Sherman Potter) say their goodbyes.
“We might hardly rehearse,” she informed THR. “I had to take a look at this man whom I like and say, ‘You pricey, candy man, I’ll always remember you,’ with out getting emotional — and I couldn’t. I can’t now even. [Morgan died in 2011.] It wasn’t phrases on a web page. You knew what you had been saying was fact.”
Swit grew to become the primary M*A*S*H castmember to go to Korea when, in 1988, she hosted the syndicated documentary Korean Battle — The Untold Story. The doc mixed interviews with American veterans and fight footage and was launched together with the thirty fifth anniversary of the truce that ended the preventing.
Other than her performing profession, Swit was an lively supporter of animal welfare, 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 based SwitHeart Animal Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to ending animal cruelty. She used proceeds from her unique paintings to lift funds.
Swit additionally was host of the cable documentary collection These Unbelievable Animals in 1992 and teamed with M*A*S*H co-star Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicut) to host the 1986 PBS particular Saving the Wildlife, which highlighted efforts by Jane Goodall, Brigitte Bardot and Prince Philip to guard endangered species.
Swit was named Lady of the 12 months by the Animal Safety Institute and the Worldwide Fund for Animal Welfare. She testified earlier than Congress in 1999, talking out for the prohibition of “crush movies” — productions the place bugs and small animals are squashed onscreen.
She was lively within the Chicago theater neighborhood and carried out the one-woman play Shirley Valentine greater than 1,000 occasions. She acquired the Sarah Siddons Award in 1991 for her theatrical contributions and in 2003 joined the touring forged of The Vagina Monologues.
That very same yr, she performed the title function in a North Carolina manufacturing of Mame — she had starred as Agnes Gooch in 1968 in Las Vegas after serving as an understudy on the Broadway present headlined by Angela Lansbury.
Swit stated her profession got here full circle when, in 1994, she guest-starred on Homicide, She Wrote alongside Lansbury. “Angie is one in all two fan letters I’ve ever written in my life. The opposite was to Robert Mitchum,” she recalled. “She was simply dazzling [in Mame]. Years later, after we met at a CBS operate, I stated, ‘You most likely gained’t keep in mind this, however after I was in New York …’ I don’t suppose I bought additional than that and she or he stopped me and stated, ‘I nonetheless have that letter.’”
A proficient singer and dancer who had been enrolled in dance lessons as a teen, Swit additionally carried out on The Muppet Present and in various musical TV specials. And she or he was a game-show common on Match Recreation, The Hollywood Squares and The $10,000 Pyramid.
In 2019, after a 21-year absence, she returned to the display within the spiritual movie Play the Flute, a few youth group.
Swit was married to actor Dennis Holahan, whom she met on the set of M*A*S*H, from 1983 till their divorce in 1995.
Donations in her reminiscence might be to Actors & Others for Animals or the SwitHeart Animal Alliance, which she set as much as shield, rescue, prepare and look after animals and protect their habitat. She not too long ago created a fragrance and a necklace, the gross sales of which supported her efforts.
When requested concerning the persevering with influence of the present that made her a family title, Swit introduced up a telegram from a fan. “It stated, ‘Expensive M*A*S*H folks: You made me chortle. You made me cry. You made me really feel. Thanks.’ I’ve by no means forgotten that,” she stated. “That’s one hell of a legacy.”
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.