M*A*S*H ran for 251 episodes from 1972 to 1983, and Swit appeared in 240 of them. The actor won two Emmys for her performance, and as the series progressed, she gradually steered the character away from one that started much broader. “[A]s Loretta became more socially aware, she would suggest little changes in Houlihan’s dialogue and motivation that made the character more dedicated, deep and human,” producer Burt Metcalfe said in a 1979 People cover story.
Born in New Jersey in 1937, Swit said she “always wanted to be an actress.” Her first roles came on the off-Broadway stage in the 1960s, before she eventually headed to Los Angeles and began gaining small guest roles in series like Mission: Impossible and Hawaii Five-O. “Work is work, experience is experience. Things started to pile up,” she said during a 2005 interview with The Television Academy.
The role of Houlihan in Robert Altman’s 1970 film M*A*S*H was played by Sally Kellerman, but was recast with Swit when the story became a TV series in 1972. (Years later, Swit would joke that she would sometimes sign autographs with Kellerman’s name.) Landing the role meant becoming a fixture of one of the most popular TV shows of all time. When she would reflect on the series years later, Swit kept coming back to M*A*S*H‘s writers, comparing acting in the show to “working on a little miracle all the time.” Likewise, Swit was well respected by the crew, with Metcalf citing her “dogged determination.” M*A*S*H also sparked a long friendship with series lead and eventual writer Alan Alda. In the 70s, Swit credited Alda with encouraging her to learn more about social movements like women’s lib, saying, “I think of Alan as a teacher… He is a gentle, kind man and I owe a lot of my transformation into a liberated person to him.”
In the years after M*A*S*H, Swit often returned to the stage, appearing in the 1985 Broadway production of The Mystery Of Edwin Drood. She also appeared in the pilot film Cagney and Lacey as Christine Cagney, but contractual obligations with M*A*S*H meant that she couldn’t join the show when it went to series. Swit seemed to be largely retired from screen acting in the 2000s on, though she appeared in regional theater as recently as 2017.
