Loretta Swit, the Emmy- winning actress best known for her role as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the long-running TV series MASH*, died Friday at her home in New York City. She was 87. A police report indicated natural causes are suspected, though the official report from the medical examiner is pending.
Swit achieved fame on MASH*, where she appeared in all 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983 and won two Emmy Awards. But her work stretched far beyond the Korean War-set series, including a memorable role in the 1975 horror-thriller Race with the Devil, which featured filming in Bandera, Castroville and San Antonio.
One of the film’s standout scenes unfolds inside Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar, where the real Arkey Blue is shown singing “Living on Credit” before Swit’s character takes the stage to perform a Patsy Cline number—and then pulls a gun on a bar patron. The resulting shootout leaves bodies on the floor, mixing honky-tonk grit with sharp, dark humor.
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