When M*A*S*H began in 1972, Major Margaret Houlihan was a figure of fun, a rigid army nurse nicknamed “Hot Lips” after a broadcast of her love-making with Major Frank Burns. By the time the show ended in 1983, Loretta Swit had made her one of the most complex women on American television. Swit died at her home in New York City on May 30, 2025. She was 87.
Early career
Swit was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on November 4, 1937, to a Polish American family, and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She toured with stage productions, including Any Wednesday and Mame, and had guest roles in television series such as Gunsmoke and Hawaii Five-O before she was cast in M*A*S*H. Sally Kellerman had played the role in Robert Altman’s 1970 film.
Margaret Houlihan
Over eleven seasons, the writers and Swit turned Houlihan into a capable, lonely, proud officer. She left Frank Burns, married and divorced, and became a respected friend to the surgeons she had once reported. Swit was one of the few cast members who appeared in all eleven seasons, and she won the Emmy for best supporting actress in a comedy in 1980 and 1982. The final episode, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen”, watched by more than 100 million Americans in 1983, remains the most-watched scripted programme in American television history.
Later years
Swit played Christine Cagney in the 1981 television film that launched Cagney and Lacey, though she could not continue in the series because of her M*A*S*H contract. She returned to the stage, appearing in Shirley Valentine and The Vagina Monologues, and spent much of her later life campaigning for animal welfare through her own foundation. She was also a painter.
Margaret Houlihan began as the show’s joke and ended as one of its heroes, and Swit was there for every step of the change.