Loretta Swit, who played “Hot Lips” Houlihan on TV’s M*A*S*H, died on May 30. She was 87. Swit was a rising young stage and TV actress when cast in M*A*S*H in 1972. She took over the role from the movie’s Houlihan, Sally Kellerman (the two were dead ringers). Swit was ten-times Emmy-nominated for M*A*S*H, winning twice. She continued working, though would always be associated with that one role. Swit later appeared in such shows as The Love Boat and Murder She Wrote; her film career never really took off, though she did turn up in Freebie and the Bean, Race with the Devil, BoardHeads, and S.O.B. An animal-rights activist, she founded SwitHeart Animal Alliance. As for “Hot Lips” Houlihan, “She gained a lot of self-esteem through the years, and she came to realize that what she did, what she offered, was valuable,” Swit said. “To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn't discard anything. I didn't go on 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.”
