2025’s “Top” Ten Losses: Loretta Swit (#5)

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This one hurt me bad, because this was my favorite TV show in the 70s, and to see another actor from it leave us just reminds me how far back it was. No, kids, it wasn’t twice a day on MeTV, it was once a week on Saturday night! Here’s another legend who’s now gone from us. #5: Loretta Swit In the early days of the TV series M*A*S*H no one knew that Major Margaret Houlihan had a name other than “Hot Lips.” By the end of the series, no one remembered that nickname. That’s the brilliance of an actor taking a part and making it grow. Loretta Swit was one of two actors (the other being Alan Alda, who’s turning 90 tomorrow!) who was with the show for the entire eleven year run. Of course, she did much more in her career than that (she was in an episode of Bonanza before M*A*S*H, on The Muppet Show, singing, during, and authoring a book on needlepoint after it), but we all knew her and loved her as Margaret Houlihan. Thankfully, because of that role, she was able to bring women in the military, and women in general, to a higher plateau than they had been prior to the show. For that, this old sailor can only say, “Thank you.” Loretta Swit Born Loretta Jane Szwed, November 4, 1937, Passaic, New Jersey Died May 30, 2025, New York City (natural causes) (age 87) A great MeTV retrospective on Swit’s most famous character: