DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Loretta Swit Passes

It seems like more and more parts of my younger days are falling away with each passing day.

RIP Hot Lips. I don't think anyone else could have even come close to playing that iconin role so wel.

Loretta Swit a.k.a. Hot Lips of TV’s ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 87 - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/obituaries/loretta-swit-dead.html


Loretta Swit, the Emmy-winning actress who made the high-strung and relentlessly militaristic Maj. Margaret Houlihan human, dignified and — against all odds — sympathetic on the acclaimed television series “M*A*S*H,” died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 87.

Her death was announced by her publicist, Harlan Boll.

In the Oscar-winning 1970 film “M*A*S*H,” directed by Robert Altman, Major Houlihan (whose blatantly sexist nickname was Hot Lips) was played by Sally Kellerman. When the movie became a CBS series, Ms. Swit stepped into the role and made it her own. She was nominated 10 years in a row for the Emmy Award for best supporting actress in a comedy series, and she won twice, in 1980 and 1982.

The TV series aired from 1972 through 1983 and, like its movie inspiration, was set at a mobile Army hospital during the Korean War. Major Houlihan spent the first five seasons distracted by her open secret of an affair with the sniveling, very married Maj. Frank Burns (Larry Linville).

Around the time Major Burns returned to the United States, she married a handsome officer whom she had met in Tokyo. But he proved unfaithful, and she was soon divorced and newly dedicated to her career as the unit’s head nurse.

“It was the greatest time in my career,” Ms. Swit told the British newspaper The Guardian in 2001. Her ambition throughout the series was to be “the best damned nurse in Korea, and that motivated everything I did, even when it came to sex.” Major Houlihan did seem to be on a flirtatious first-name basis with every general who visited the camp.

I used to really like that show when I was young. R.I.P.

My wife and I just started watching reruns of MASH on Hulu a few weeks ago. They have every episode of the series available. We started watching reruns of Cheers a couple of weeks ago as well. The timing on all of this makes me think maybe we should stop watching some of the greatest shows from our past.

First it was George Wendt and now Loretta Swit.

Sad news to all of us who watched the show like clockwork every week. She was a part of our life for years. RIP

Sometimes it's hell getting old. This is one of those times.

She was really good on that show. She was an antagonist to Hawkeye and others, but there were times when her character’s empathy for others was obvious. Hot Lips wasn’t bitchy all the time, when writers could have made her that way.

More sad news.