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Loretta Switt won two Emmy Awards for playing Major Margaret Hoolihan, a demanding nurse in the behind-the-scenes surgery department during the Korean War with the pioneering hit television series Mash. She was 87 years old.
Public relations officer Harlan Bol says Swit passed away on Friday at his New York City home.
Swit and Alan Alda are H. He was the longest serving cast member of “Mash,” based on the 1970 film by Robert Altman, based on the novel by Richard Hooker, a pseudonym of Richard Hornberger.
The CBS Show aired for 11 years from 1972 to 1983, revolving around life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, giving the show its name. The two and a half hour finale on February 28, 1983 captivated over 100 million viewers, the most watched episode of the series ever written.
Rolling Stone Magazine placed “Mash” at No. 25 of the best television show ever, with timeouts coming to No. 34. He won the Impact Award at the 2009 TV Land Annual Awards. He won the Peabody Award in 1975. He was awarded “for the depth of humor and the way comedy is used to lift the spirit and provide a deep statement about the nature of war.”
In Altman’s 1970 film, Houlihan was a one-dimensional character. This is a sex-obsessed bimbo that has earned the nickname “Hot Lips.” Her intimate moments were broadcast throughout the camp after someone planted a microphone under her bed.
Sally Kellerman played Houlihan in the film version, and Swit took over it for television, eventually deepening, making her a much more fulfilling character. Her sexual appetite has declined, and she was not even known as a “hot lip” in her later years.
The growing perception of feminism in the ’70s encouraged the transformation from Hoolihan’s caricatures to real people, but many of the changes were due to Swit’s influence on screenwriters.
“Around my second or third year, I decided to try and play her as a real person, in an intelligent way, even if it meant hurting the joke,” Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of “The Complete Book of ‘Mash’.”
“To oversimplify it, I took each of the traumatic changes that took place in her life and kept them. I didn’t go to the next episode as if I were another character from another play. She was a constant flux character.
“Mash” wasn’t a hit right away. It finished its first season with 46th place out of the 75 Network TV series, but has earned nine Emmy Award nominations. It paid off with a better time slot for the sophomore season, paired with “All in the Family” on Saturday night, with a top-rated TV show. The 1974 Emmies was crowned with the best comedy, and Alda won as the best comedy actor.
The series survived despite the cast churn. In addition to Swit and Alda, the first season featured Wayne Rogers, McLean Stevenson, Larry Linville and Gary Burghoff. Harry Morgan, Mike Farrell and David Ogden Steers were later added, with Jamie Far and William Christopher expanding their roles.
SWIT appeared in all but 11 episodes of the series, nearly four times longer than the Korean War itself, and investigated issues such as PTSD, sexism, and racism. Swit was pushed for better expression for women.
“One of my favourite things is Loretta’s plot, and whenever I had the opportunity to write for her character, we escaped from the hot lip angle and learned more about who Margaret was.
The series ended with a happy note from Hourihan, who spends much of the finale debating whether she will head to Tokyo or Belgium for her next overseas post. Eventually, she chooses to return to America and work in a hospital, citing her father, Career Army Man.
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