Alan Alda delivers moving tribute to his late M*A*S*H co-star Loretta Swit

Following the death of beloved M*A*S*H star Loretta Swit, actor Alan Alda has paid a moving and deeply personal tribute to his longtime co-star, reflecting on her extraordinary talent and pivotal role in transforming one of television’s most iconic characters.

Swit, who won two Emmy Awards playing Major Margaret Houlihan on the pioneering hit TV series sadly passed away at the age of 87. Publicist Harlan Boll said Swit died on Friday, May 30 at her home in New York City, likely from natural causes.

Alda, who worked alongside Swit throughout the show’s 11-year run, took to social media to honour her legacy.

“Loretta was a supremely talented actor,” he wrote.

“She deserved all her 10 EMMY nominations and her 2 wins. But more than acting her part, she created it. She worked hard In showing the writing staff how they could turn the character from a one joke sexist stereotype into a real person — with real feelings and ambitions.

“We celebrated the day the script came out listing her character not as Hot Lips, but as Margaret. Loretta made the most of her time here.”

Loretta was a supremely talented actor. She deserved all her 10 EMMY nominations and her 2 wins. But more than acting her part, she created it. She worked hard In showing the writing staff how they could turn the character from a one joke sexist stereotype into a real person –…

— Alan Alda (@alanalda) May 30, 2025

Swit and Alda were the longest-serving cast members on M*A*S*H, which was based on Robert Altman’s 1970 film, which was itself based on a novel by Richard Hooker, the pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger.

The show aired for 11 years from 1972 to 1983, revolving around life at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, which gave the show its name. The two-and-a-half-hour finale on February 28, 1983 is still the most-watched episode of any scripted series ever.

In Altman’s 1970 film, Houlihan was a one-dimensional character — a sex-crazed bimbo who earned the nickname “Hot Lips”. Her intimate moments were broadcast to the entire camp after somebody planted a microphone under her bed.

Sally Kellerman played Houlihan in the movie version and Swit took it over for TV, eventually deepening and creating her into a much fuller character. The sexual appetite was played down and she wasn’t even called “Hot Lips” in the later years.

The growing awareness of feminism in the 1970s spurred Houlihan’s transformation from caricature to real person, but a lot of the change was due to Swit’s influence on the scriptwriters.

“Around the second or third year I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes,” Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of The Complete Book of M*A*S*H.

“To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn’t go into the next episode as if it were a different character in a different play. She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.”