'M*A*S*H' 's Loretta Swit, a Passaic native, has died
"Hot Lips" Houlihan, a one-note role in the original 1970 "M*A*S*H" movie, had evolved into a nuanced, complex, heroic character by the time the beloved TV series reached its 11th season.
And that has everything to do with the nuanced, complex, heroic performance of Loretta Swit, the Passaic native who died Friday.
Swit, who died of natural causes, was 87.
"She sort of set the template for complex women characters who evolved on television," said Ron Simon, head curator of the Paley Center for Media in New York. "She worked with the writers and producers to have the character evolve."
Swit, who won two Emmys for her "M*A*S*H" role, was modest about her own contribution. It was the ensemble, and the creative team, who made this landmark, long-running comedy-drama (1972-1983) about a surgical unit trying to maintain its sanity amid the madness of the Korean War, into the beloved thing it was.
"It's become a phenomenon," Swit told The Record in 2000. "I think it's all due to the fact that the original people in charge were so pure, so caring, so creative, and brilliant. The producers, from the get-go, from Day One, kept the doors open. They were always talking to us [about the characters]. It was a real communal effort. `M*A*S*H' itself was the star."
Swit, born Loretta Jane Szwed in 1937 (her parents Lester and Nellie were of Polish descent), was a cheerleader at Pope Pius XII High School in Passaic, where she graduated in 1955. She attended a secretarial school in Montclair.
She began her professional life with a series of high-profile secretary gigs: as assistant to famed gossip columnist Elsa Maxwell, as secretary to the U.N. ambassador to Ghana, and secretary to the American Rocket Society, while also studying dance and acting.
In 1961, she made the leap to the professional stage with an off-Broadway production of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," and continued to do stage work through the 1970s and beyond — from a touring production of the one-woman show "Shirley Valentine" to the 1985 Broadway production of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" by Rupert Holmes.
"Loretta Swit was in real life every bit as warm, caring and sly as her 'M*A*S*H' persona," said Holmes, known for his numerous theater pieces (including one, "Thumbs," for Bergen County Players) not to mention his immortal "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)."
"I was privileged to know her when she took over from Dame Cleo Laine in my Broadway musical 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' " Holmes said. "In that show, the audience voted on whodunit at each performance, and the biggest problem Loretta presented for us was that everyone adored her and no one could imagine her as a killer."
Swit also did movies ("Freebie and the Bean," 1974; "S.O.B.," 1981) and lots and lots of television: "Mission: Impossible," "Gunsmoke," "The Love Boat."
But it was her role on "M*A*S*H" that made her, not just a favorite with TV viewers, but also a game-changer in the realm of situation comedy.
Characters in sitcoms don't evolve. That is — or was — the point.
Lucy is always wacky. Dennis is always a menace. Oscar is always sloppy, and Felix is always neat. That's the situation. Hence, "situation comedy."
But "M*A*S*H," with its 11-year run, couldn't be static. Alan Alda, Mike Farrell, Jamie Farr, Harry Morgan, Gary Burghoff, had to develop.
"If you're portraying a character for 11 seasons, the character has to have an arc," said Steven Gorelick, former executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. "Otherwise, you don't have 11 seasons."
And the "M*A*S*H" regular who evolved most was the character, played by Swit, who was originally called "Hot Lips" Houlihan. By the end of the show, she was "Margaret."
"She took that role and made it her own," Gorelick said.
In the original movie (where she was played by Sally Kellerman) and in the early TV episodes, "Hot Lips" is there to be the butt of jokes. She's the embodiment of stuffy officialdom — and most of the jokes involve the randy surgeons of the M*A*S*H unit knocking her off her pedestal, usually in crudely sexual ways.
That's where Swit's character started. But that is not where it ended up. The burgeoning women's movement of the 1970s had something to do with that. But so did Swit.
"Starting from that male-viewed stereotype, she becomes more complex," Simon said.
One symptom of this: the gradual fading of the "Hot Lips" as a character name. "They stopped calling her that," Simon said. "It just didn't fit. She was head nurse, she had major responsibility, she was the most important woman in the M*A*S*H division."
The character, in turn, became the template for other competent women who started to be seen on TV: "Cagney and Lacey" (Swit was originally slated to appear in it), "Murphy Brown."
Happily, Swit's work will live on. Because "M*A*S*H" will live on.
"I'm heartbroken to learn of her departure," Holmes said. "But I am comforted that the range of her wonderful work lives on in virtually every episode of one of television's legendary series."
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Loretta Swit of 'M*A*S*H,' and Passaic NJ native, dies
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