Loretta Swit Appeared in Almost All of M*A*S*H's More Than 250 Episodes

Loretta Swit (right), the Emmy award-winning actress who played no-nonsense United States Army combat nurse Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the hit TV series M*A*S*H for more than a decade, died on May 30 at the age of 87.

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NEW YORK - Loretta Swit (right), the Emmy award-winning actress who played no-nonsense United States Army combat nurse Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the hit TV series M*A*S*H for more than a decade, died on May 30 at the age of 87.

Swit, a mainstay of one of the most successful and acclaimed series in US television history, died at her home in New York City from what was suspected to be natural causes, her publicist Harlan Boll said.

She earned two Best Supporting Actress Emmys and 10 nominations for her role as "Hot Lips"—the lusty, tough but vulnerable, patriotic career Army nurse in the series that ran from 1972 to 1983.

As the only regular female character in the ground-breaking show set in the fictional 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War of the 1950s, "Hot Lips" endured the insults, pranks and practical jokes of the fun-loving male surgeons.