Loretta Swit, the Emmy-winning actor most well-known for her leading role on “M*A*S*H,” has died, her representative said Friday.
She was 87.
Swit died at her home in New York City just after noon Friday, her team said in a statement, citing a police report. It is suspected she died of natural causes, but a report from the coroner’s office is still pending.
Swit portrayed the quick-witted Maj. Margaret Houlihan on one of TV’s most honored series and collected a number of awards for the “M*A*S*H” role, including two Emmys. She was nominated for 10 Emmys and four Golden Globes.
Her sensuous, sensitive, comedic character was also known as “Hot Lips.”
The TV series, which aired from September 1972 to February 1983, followed the staff of an Army hospital during the Korean War. Swit starred in all seasons of “M*A*S*H” alongside Alan Alda, Jamie Farr and Larry Linville. Swit and Alda were the two longest-running actors on the comedy-drama.
Its series finale, on Feb. 28, 1983, was two-and-a-half hours long and had more than 100 million viewers — the most of any scripted TV series ever.
Swit was born Loretta Jane Szwed on Nov. 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey, to Polish immigrants. She went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before kick-starting her career with years of touring.
She got her first on-screen acting credits in the late 1960s, with “Gunsmoke,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Mission Impossible” and “Bonanza.” She was cast in “M*A*S*H” in 1972 — her big break.
Swit had more than 25 TV movie credits, her team said, including the role of Chris Cagney in the original “Cagney and Lacey,” but she didn’t appear in the series because she was filming “M*A*S*H” at the time, her representative said.
She also had roles in “Games Mother Never Taught You,” “Hell Hath No Fury,” “The Execution,” “Dreams of Gold,” and “A Killer Among Friends.”
Swit also tried her hand on stage. She made her Broadway debut in “Same Time, Next Year” in 1975 and appeared in more than 1,200 performances of “Shirley Valentine,” which earned her the Sarah Siddons Award, the most prestigious theater award in Chicago, according to her team.
Swit also appeared in a number of TV musical specials, including “The Muppet Show” and the Broadway musical “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman.”
Her success on TV landed Swit film roles alongside major actors, including “Freebie and the Bean” with James Caan and Alan Arkin, “S.O.B.” with Julie Andrews,” “Race with the Devil” with Peter Fonda and “Forrest Warrior” with Chuck Norris, among others.
Swit, who loved animals as much as she did the arts, her rep said, had a wildlife series on Discovery. “Those Incredible Animals” was shown twice a week for five years in more than 30 countries.
She founded the SwitHeart Animal Alliance “to prevent cruelty and end animal suffering, to promote and cooperate with numerous nonprofit organizations and programs that protect, rescue, train, and care for animals and preserve their habitat,” her rep said in the statement.”
She created and sold both a coloring book and a perfume to raise money for the animal alliance and other animal-related nonprofits and causes, and won a number of awards recognizing her efforts to help animals and their habitats.
