Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy awards for her role on the popular comedy TV series M*A*S*H, died on Friday, according to her representative.
She died at her home in New York at age 87, her publicist Harlan Boll told the BBC. She likely died of natural causes, although a coroner’s report is pending.
On M*A*S*H, Swit played US Army nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The series, which followed a mobile Army surgical hospital during the Korean war, ran for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1983.
Swit was nominated for numerous awards, and appeared in nearly every episode of the series, including the finale which attracted a record 106m US viewers.
The show remains one of the most successful and acclaimed series in US television history. Its season finale was the most watched episode of any TV series in history when it ended in 1983.
As “Hot Lips,” Swit played a tough but vulnerable Army nurse who gained the nickname after having an affair with Maj. Frank Burns, who was played by Larry Linville.
The show used comedy and pranks to tackle tough issues like racism, sexism and the impacts of PTSD within the military. It was based on the 1968 book, “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors,” penned by an Army surgeon.
Along with M*A*S*H, Swit also appeared in other TV shows, movies and even game shows over her career. She took to the Broadway stage in “Same Time, Next Year,” “Mame” and “Shirley Valentine”.
“Acting is not hiding to me, it’s revealing. We give you license to feel,” she said in an interview with the Star magazine in 2010. “That’s the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that’s when you’re dead.”
