Loretta Swit, Emmy-winning 'M*A*S*H' star, dies at 87 (2025)

Loretta Swit, the actress who will forever be known in the hearts and minds of M*A*S*H fans as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, has died. She was 87.

The actress' publicist, Harlan Boll, confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that Swit died just after 12 a.m. on Friday at her home in New York City. The suspected cause of death is natural causes, pending a coroners report, police said, per Boll.

The TV and stage star gained fame from playing the voluptuous head nurse in the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit on the long-running CBS comedy, winning her two Emmys from her 10 nominations.

Her beauty was routinely written into the scripts, while her sexuality was catnip to members of the M*A*S*H camp — especially Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville), with whom she carried on a long and amusing affair. When the relationship became too silly, Swit had the freedom to tell the writers that enough was enough.

"There was this excitement, this creativity that you don’t find on every job," Swit was once quoted as saying. "They were writing her more intelligent, and they were writing him sillier. I said, 'I see her breaking off with Frank, because it’s demeaning. He's married, it's not going anywhere, she has no respect for his craft, his skill as a doctor.'"

The actress was particularly proud of the strong feminist that Houlihan became during the show's 11-year run. "She's busy, she's ambitious, she's caring. She wanted to be the best damn nurse in Korea," Swit once said. "She was a real first."

Born Loretta Jane Szwed on Nov. 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey, Swit worked on her acting and singing at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Early theater roles included playing one of the Pigeon sisters opposite Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine in a Los Angeles staging of The Odd Couple.

Her early TV work included roles on Ironside, Love, American Style, and Hawaii Five-0. She even originated the role of Det. Christine Cagney in the TV movie Cagney & Lacey, before Sharon Gless went on to assume the part in the series spinoff. She also appeared in the films Games MotherNever Taught Youwith Sam Waterston,Hell Hath No Furywith BarbaraEden,The Executionwith Rip Torn,Dreams of Goldwith CliffRobertson, andA KillerAmong Friendswith Patty Duke.

She madeher Broadway debut inSame Time,Next Yearopposite Ted Bessell, played the title role of Mame in NewYork and Pennsylvania productions, and appeared in over 1,200 performancesofShirley Valentine.

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In early 2017, Swit released the book Switheart, a collection of her watercolors of animals. Proceeds went to ending animal cruelty, a longtime passion project for the actress.

She divorced actor Dennis Holahan after a 12-year marriage in 1995. They had no children.

Swit joins a now-long list of recent M*A*S*H alum deaths, including Patrick Adiarte, who played Korean orphan Ho-Jon, who died at 82 this April; Judy Farrell, who played Nurse Able, who died at 84 in 2023; co-creator Gene Reynolds, who died at 96 in 2020. Sally Kellerman, who played the same role of Hot Lips Houlihan in Robert Altman's Oscar-winning movie, died at 84 in 2022.

M*A*S*H costar Jamie Farr (Corporal Klinger) paid tribute to Swit after her death.

"I dearly loved Loretta!She was my adopted sister. As close as family can get," Farr said. "From the first time I met her, on what was supposed to be a one day appearance on M.A.S.H., we embraced each other and that became a lifetime friendship. I cant begin to expresss [sic] how much she will be missed."