Loretta Swit

Loretta Swit was an American actress who worked in theater and television, born in Passaic, New Jersey, and trained in drama under Gene Frankel in Manhattan. She began off-Broadway in An Enemy of the People and appeared in The Balcony in 1961, then moved to Hollywood in 1969 for guest roles in Hawaii Five-O, her first television credit, along with Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible and Mannix. From 1972 to 1983 she played Major Margaret Houlihan on MASH, one of just four cast members to remain for all 11 seasons; she earned an Emmy nomination for each season and won twice, in 1980 and 1982. She played Christine Cagney in the 1981 pilot movie for Cagney and Lacey, and returned to the stage for The Mystery of Edwin Drood on Broadway and the one-woman play Shirley Valentine. In 1991 she received the Sarah Siddons Award, and she got a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1989. She died in 2025.