ZingB

Tell me about M*A*S*H actress, Loretta Swit?

Any old gossip or scandals? She's currently 85. I couldn't stand her character on the show, but I always found her pretty. She reminded me of the blonde ABBA girl.

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by Anonymousreply 107March 7, 2023 6:39 PM

Wow that’s truly frightening

by Anonymousreply 2February 27, 2023 10:56 PM

No character on M*A*S*H changed more than Margaret - for the better. Once the one- dimensional Frank Burns left, her character was allowed to grow and ended up very loveable.

by Anonymousreply 3February 27, 2023 11:56 PM

Ruined her face with too much plastic surgery. She never was a beauty, but the excessive work made her look artificial. She even got hair plugs.

My mother said she was fug and resembled Miss Piggy.

by Anonymousreply 4February 28, 2023 12:17 AM

She's very lovely and although I didn't get to meet her in person she did sign a commemorative book for me that a friend got when she met her.

by Anonymousreply 5February 28, 2023 12:19 AM

Also I really enjoyed the arch she made over the course of mash . Many of my favorite episodes were ones that showed other facets of her character such as her need to please her daddy when he showed up or showing why she's so hard on her nurses. She really was a very complex character.

I did see her on I think it was the Dick Van Dyke show where he was a medical examiner or whatever and she was wearing the most awful wig I assume it was a wig but then I realized she seems to have issues finding hairstyles that work for her.

by Anonymousreply 6February 28, 2023 12:22 AM

She won TWO Emmy Awards for MASH

by Anonymousreply 8February 28, 2023 12:40 AM

Why did her career go down the shitter?

by Anonymousreply 9February 28, 2023 12:45 AM

She probably earned a boatload from the show and it's repeats so doesn't need to work.

by Anonymousreply 10February 28, 2023 12:48 AM

I read something about her being a pain in the ass post-MASH. She was in a Burger King commercial and kept complaining the bite taken out of the prop burger was too big and she’d look like a pig.

She was in the original Cagney and Lacey movie but couldn’t get out of her MASH contract to do the TV show. Instead, Sharon Gless got the part.

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by Anonymousreply 11February 28, 2023 12:50 AM

R6 - i thought the story was that all her peroxiding had ruined her hair and she had to wear wigs.

by Anonymousreply 12February 28, 2023 12:54 AM

She is living off the royalties from her big hit "Coal Miner's Daughter."

by Anonymousreply 13February 28, 2023 1:06 AM

R13 thanks, you caught me off guard and I spat soda on my iPad screen.

by Anonymousreply 15February 28, 2023 1:08 AM

She was in one of my favorite guilty pleasure 70s cheesy horror movies, Race with the Devil, with Peter Fonda, Warren Oates and Lara Parker. Anyone remember that one?

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by Anonymousreply 16February 28, 2023 1:14 AM

Only two years after MASH ended, Hot Lips was doing Burger King commercials? Not even a star cameo, just a regular old commercial?

Yikes.

by Anonymousreply 18February 28, 2023 1:20 AM

She was in a great TV movie years ago where Sondra Locke plays a detective whose investigating some tragedy that happened at a sorority years back.

Loretta, Cathryn Damon, Paula Prentiss, Shelley Fabares, and Tina Louise play the sorority sisters.

I don't think it's ever been on Youtube in full.

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by Anonymousreply 19February 28, 2023 1:20 AM

Another TV Movie was The Execution. The members of a San Diego Wednesday night womens' mah jongg club are five survivors of a Nazi concentration camp. They recognize the owner of a local restaurant, Walter Grossman, as a doctor from the camp who performed experiments on them as young girls.

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by Anonymousreply 20February 28, 2023 1:26 AM

I got a Cameo from her for my dad for Father’s Day a couple of years ago, he loved it and I was impressed she was still quite well.

by Anonymousreply 21February 28, 2023 1:27 AM

That actually looks good R20

by Anonymousreply 22February 28, 2023 1:30 AM

She needs to get Brendad Ickson to show her how to use filters.

by Anonymousreply 23February 28, 2023 1:32 AM

Was Sally offered MASH the series? I do not recall the topic in her memoir. Of course in those days an Oscar nominated actress would never reprise her film role in a TV series. But anything would have been better than Sally’s post-MASH film career.

by Anonymousreply 24February 28, 2023 1:33 AM

Didn't some poster have bad experiences with her when she was doing the Dinner Theater/Summer Stock circuit or some C-class touring company of a Broadway show?

her character actually got worse over time on MASH. She had a marriage and then divorce that seemed apropos of nothing and she spent the last few seasons in an Oedipal relationship with COL Potter. The show was unwatchable at that point and although Alan Alda was the worst of it, her story line didn't help.

by Anonymousreply 26February 28, 2023 1:34 AM

R22 - they should have executed the accent coach.

by Anonymousreply 27February 28, 2023 1:37 AM

I thought she was passably attractive early on in MASH, but she got progressively harder to look at. Too much makeup, bad wigs. One of the wigs looked like it had belonged to Harpo Marx. I guess the wigs were necessary; in the first seasons of MASH her hair looks thin and her hairline was receding.

In some gossip rag (Rona Barrett's maybe) it did a piece on her. MASH was in its early stages of popularity back then. It said she was 28. But when the show started she was actually 35.

Her character on MASH evolved over the years, which of course was more interesting. "Hot Lips" became Margaret who stopped jumping into bed with generals and otherd of higher rank and set out to increase her own nursing skills and the skills of the nurses she was in charge of. She got out a rut, which poor Larry Linville was unable to do with Frank Burns, who remained a one note character to the end of his run on the series.

She met her "soulmate" Dennis Holahan on some MASH episode where he plays a visiting U.N. doctor. The episode is hard to watch; Margaret turns into Hot Lips at the sight of him and her crotch immediately gets wet. She practically drools over him and flings herself at him, coming to his tent to offer herself to him. It puts the poor man in an awful situation because he can't have intercourse due to a war injury. I always thought that was one of the worst MASH episodes. At any rate, Swit and Holahan married, but the "soulmates" didn't last; they eventually divorced. I can't say that surprised me. In several photos I saw of him he pinged to high heaven.

by Anonymousreply 28February 28, 2023 2:00 AM

I once had to sit next to her at an awards dinner. She spent the entire time talking about how she was much more talented than anyone who won an award. Bitter, angry, strange woman with a face that says, "I've spent too much money trying to look better than I do."

by Anonymousreply 29February 28, 2023 2:11 AM

I was very happy when Frank Burns and Henry Blake left the show. It had just become a sophomoric, predictable sitcom, filled with stock characters and little character depth. When they left, it got much better.

by Anonymousreply 30February 28, 2023 2:17 AM

I liked Hot Lips. She was a damn good nurse.

by Anonymousreply 31February 28, 2023 3:09 AM

It got dull and a sanctimonious when they got got rid of the conflict between the characters. She was a snore once she ceased to be Hot Lips, much as Klinger became tiresome once he got out of dresses..

by Anonymousreply 32February 28, 2023 3:47 AM

She worked her pussy hard

by Anonymousreply 33February 28, 2023 3:49 AM

[quote] I was very happy when Frank Burns and Henry Blake left the show

Well, Frank Burns had certainly worn out his welcome. But I really liked sweet, wishy-washy Henry Blake. That was a plum role for Mclean Stevenson, but idiot that he was, he thought he could do better and be the star of his own tv series. One of the worst career movies ever. Such a shame; I liked Henry Blake a lot more than Sherman Potter.

It was a great blow when Gary Burghoff left the show. Radar was really the heart of the show; after he left the show really went downhill, limping along for another 3 years. Burghoff was supposedly a pill, but Radar was the sweetest, nicest person on the show. He was a lot more appealing than the next company clerk, the nutso Klinger.

On the finale episode, where everyone is leaving one by one, I wish Henry Blake and Radar had been there to say farewell and go back safely to their homes in Illinois and Iowa.

by Anonymousreply 34February 28, 2023 3:52 AM

Only Henry Blake died... his plane was shot down. :(

by Anonymousreply 35February 28, 2023 4:00 AM

They wanted to make sure Stevenson didn't come back. He was a prima donna who thought everything should be done in a single take.

by Anonymousreply 36February 28, 2023 4:04 AM

She was fleet of foot, but I really wouldn’t call her swift.

by Anonymousreply 37February 28, 2023 4:17 AM

She was in the 1975 tv movie The Last Day with Richard Widmark and Robert Conrad

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by Anonymousreply 38February 28, 2023 4:21 AM

She was good as a gossip columnist in Blake Edward's "S.O.B." I thought that was a funny movie.

by Anonymousreply 39February 28, 2023 4:31 AM

She kicked Sharon Gless in the cunt!

by Anonymousreply 40February 28, 2023 4:34 AM

[quote]She was good as a gossip columnist in Blake Edward's "S.O.B." I thought that was a funny movie.

Oh, dear.

by Anonymousreply 41February 28, 2023 5:02 AM

R19 I remember that…no men were in the cast, a la THE WOMEN. Shelley Fabares was a lesbian doctor, Stella Stevens was a battered spouse and Tina Louise was a dipsomaniac trophy wife who constantly criticized her teenage daughter. “Wear something decent! I can see your panties from HERE,”, she shouted to her daughter while seated near her swimming pool.

by Anonymousreply 43February 28, 2023 5:04 PM

R11 Meg Foster got the role as Christine Cagney in the series, got fired after 6 episodes and was replaced by Sharon Gless.

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by Anonymousreply 45February 28, 2023 6:34 PM

FIRST CELEB I ever saw naked in a magazine was Loretta Swit. I can't remember if it was OUI or Penthouse, but there she was, legs spread in a tree showing her hairy pussy.

by Anonymousreply 46February 28, 2023 6:57 PM

My Dad loved her big titties!

by Anonymousreply 47February 28, 2023 7:00 PM

R46 I think you are mistaken and that was Loretta Clit

by Anonymousreply 49March 1, 2023 12:25 AM

According to a DL post from the turn of the century, Loretta kicked Meg Foster square in the taco for taking the Chris Cagney role from her. The same person claimed that Loretta peed in a bag full of bologna and left it on Alan Alda's porch.

Funny the things you remember... and the things you don't.

by Anonymousreply 50March 1, 2023 12:34 AM

The ex-husband looks like Gay Gayerson. Plus the language she uses here re family vs career almost ensures that she's a homosexualist.

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by Anonymousreply 51March 1, 2023 1:36 AM

Is it a thing among plastic surgeons to make their patients look embalmed? The question I would like someone to ask these stars is “ So who’s your mortician?”

by Anonymousreply 52March 1, 2023 2:10 AM

She has more wigs than Cher.

by Anonymousreply 53March 1, 2023 2:14 AM

She replaced Cleo Laine in 'The Mystery of Drood on Broadway, I think. And it did not go well. She believed the part was too small so started popping up in back windows being mysterious, which were not part of the stage directions and drove the cast fucking insane.

by Anonymousreply 54March 1, 2023 2:21 AM

[R41] Exactly what was wrong with the post. She was great in Blake Edward's "S.O.B.". There was no "apostrophe" issue that I could see and I was educated by the nuns!

by Anonymousreply 55March 1, 2023 2:21 AM

She was the best thing about S.O.B. IMO. Funny as hell.

by Anonymousreply 57March 1, 2023 2:41 AM

Loretta starred in the naughty-sounding 'Games Your Mother Never Taught You' right after M*A*S*H. Based on a book "the definitive, hard-nosed manual on corporate politics for the career woman".

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by Anonymousreply 58March 1, 2023 2:52 AM

I had a boss in the 80s who called me "Radar" because I could anticipate his needs so well.

by Anonymousreply 59March 1, 2023 2:56 AM

Donna Summer wrote a song about her, when she saw her on the set of the final MASH episode in 1983.

The lyrics:

'Loretta there in the corner stands

And she wonders where she is

And It's strange to her, some people seem to have everything.'

by Anonymousreply 60March 1, 2023 2:58 AM

R52 and where did she get that wig? The Walmart mophead collection.

by Anonymousreply 61March 1, 2023 3:01 AM

Oh my God, I'M the one who made the dreaded Blake Edwards apostrophe error. Please forgive me and accept my most abject apologies.

by Anonymousreply 63March 1, 2023 4:02 AM

I sat next to her at a play once. The facial surgery is very distracting in person.

by Anonymousreply 64March 1, 2023 4:09 AM

She was on Kreskin when I was a kid!! I was like there is the MASH lady!!

by Anonymousreply 65March 1, 2023 4:19 AM

I’m sure the old gal has a Law and Order guest spot left in her. She wouldn’t look any older than Betty Buckley. They could play sisters and fight a lot.

by Anonymousreply 66March 1, 2023 4:45 AM

A friend of mine was mortified back in the 80's when a man told her she looked like Loretta Switt. Our wonderful gay friend tried to calm her down by telling her that's not so bad as the time one of his restaurant customers told him he looked like Marty Feldman.

by Anonymousreply 67March 1, 2023 4:56 AM

I didn't know she played Eleanor Roosevelt.

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by Anonymousreply 68March 1, 2023 7:14 AM

[quote]Was Sally offered MASH the series?

I think the only carry over was Gary Burghoff, r24. I always found that odd.

[quote]It was a great blow when Gary Burghoff left the show. Radar was really the heart of the show; after he left the show really went downhill, limping along for another 3 years. Burghoff was supposedly a pill, but Radar was the sweetest, nicest person on the show.

Loved the movie, LOATHED the show, r34. In particular, I despised what was done to Radar in the transition. In the movie, he was the guy. He was a savvy guy who knew everything. On the show, he was a simpering little boy. I would have taken the check, but I probably would have been a pill, too.

by Anonymousreply 69March 1, 2023 7:19 AM

[quote] Was Sally offered MASH the series? I do not recall the topic in her memoir. Of course in those days an Oscar nominated actress would never reprise her film role in a TV series. But anything would have been better than Sally’s post-MASH film career.

R24 If I recall correctly, Diane Ladd won an Oscar nomination as 'Flo' in 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' in 1974. When CBS created the TV series in 1976, they asked Ladd to reprise her role as Flo, but her scheduling wouldn't allow it. In 1980, she did join the cast as 'Belle' to replace the departing Polly Holliday as 'Flo'.

by Anonymousreply 70March 1, 2023 3:51 PM

[quote]She was great in Blake Edward's "S.O.B.". There was no "apostrophe" issue that I could see and I was educated by the nuns!

Is it too late for your parents to get their tuition money refunded?

by Anonymousreply 71March 1, 2023 11:36 PM

Since she was brought up have we ever done a Meg Foster thread? I’ve been on a bad 80s movie kick and she’s been in a few things I’ve seen, like Stepfather 2. She always seems kind of off. Just sort of odd and possibly stoned half the time. What’s her deal?

by Anonymousreply 72March 2, 2023 12:35 AM

She was written out of MASH briefly so she could do Same Time, Next Year on Broadway. Her co star Ted Bessell loathed her and was thrilled when Sandy Dennis came in to replace her after 6 months.

by Anonymousreply 73March 2, 2023 12:47 AM

Okay, I have some gossip. She replaced Cleo Laine in “The Mystery of Drood” on Broadway (Cleo and Betty Buckley both left the show shortly after the Tony Awards; I think they only had six month contracts.) Buckley was replaced by her understudy, a then unknown Donna Murphy and finished the last year of the run. Loretta Swit replaced Cleo Laine, thinking she would bring in tv fans, as M*A*S*H had only gone off the air three years earlier. She was… adequate (I saw her in it,) but got in trouble with stage management.

As some of you younger gaylings might not know, the gimmick of “Drood” was having the audience vote on who the murderer is. The audience was not voting for Loretta as the murderer (if you’re the murderer, you get an extra song at the end as a confession, and besides being the only “name” in the show other than Tony-winner George Rose and her ego got bruised, she got pissed off that she had learned this extra number and never got to perform it.)

So, out of desperation, she started showing up scenes she wasn’t supposed to be in, like peering through the window during Howard McGillin and Patti Cohenour’s duet, lurking in the shadows during other numbers, in an attempt to make her look more guilty. Not only was it unprofessional, it was dangerous, as there was scenery constantly tracking on, drops coming down, and trap doors in the stage floor and could’ve easily been injured. She did not endear herself to the rest of the cast (they LOVED Cleo,) and when a friend in the cast finally asked her out for dinner between shows on a matinee day, she suddenly burst into tears, saying “Everyone hates me! The cast hates me, the crew hates me, the audience hates me…” I sort of felt sorry for her after that.

But I don’t think she ever got voted as the murderer!

by Anonymousreply 74March 2, 2023 12:56 AM

r72 She has those creepy "ice-blue" eyes.

by Anonymousreply 75March 2, 2023 1:06 AM

r74, that scene you describe at the end of your post is weirdly similar to the episode of M*A*SH* where Hot Lips tearfully confronts the nurses for excluding her from "your little bull sessions ... you couldn't invite me in for a, a (sob) lousy cup of coffee?"

by Anonymousreply 76March 2, 2023 1:06 AM

Good grief, she looks like the female Kenny Rogers.

by Anonymousreply 77March 2, 2023 1:25 AM

[quote]he show and it's repeats

Oh, dear.

[quote]Sondra Locke plays a detective whose investigating

Oh, DEAR!

by Anonymousreply 78March 2, 2023 1:29 AM

[quote] that scene you describe at the end of your post is weirdly similar to the episode of M*A*SH* where Hot Lips tearfully confronts the nurses for excluding her from "your little bull sessions ... you couldn't invite me in for a, a (sob) lousy cup of coffee?"

That episode was "The Nurses." I hated it. For one thing, it featured Linda Kelsey, an actress I always loathed for some reason. I thought Margaret Houlihan humbling herself and choking up with tears before the nurses under her command was really implausible; the daughter of "Howitzer" Al Houlihan would never have done that. And "you couldn't invite me in for a (sob) lousy cup of coffee!" is some of the dopiest dialogue ever uttered on the show, especially since it came from Margaret Houlihan. I guess the show was supposed to make the tough head nurse show her vulnerable side, but I thought it sucked and the nurses that Margaret so wants to be chummy with were assholes. The episode where Margaret breaks down after hearing the news that a stray dog she'd been feeding had been killed by a jeep was a much better representation of how even though she was tough on the outside she had feelings like anyone else.

by Anonymousreply 79March 2, 2023 2:12 AM

R74 You gotta love people who do stuff like this and then get upset when everyone gets ticked off.

by Anonymousreply 81March 2, 2023 2:24 AM

I liked the nurses episode myself, as I can relate to feeling left out of social groups at work from time to time. It stuck with me all these years. I like Linda Kelsey too. Diff’rent strokes.

by Anonymousreply 82March 2, 2023 3:04 AM

So after this episode did they show Margaret having coffee with the nurses or did she mainly hang out with the other officers when not working?

by Anonymousreply 83March 2, 2023 3:06 AM

After "The Nurses" episode I saw no indication that Margaret ever got chummy with her underlings or ever had "a cup of coffee" with them. The subject was never brought up again. I can understand why. Margaret Houlihan getting friendly with the nurses she's in charge of? That totally went against her regular Army attitude and beliefs.

by Anonymousreply 85March 2, 2023 3:35 AM

After doing Gooch with Hayward in Vegas, did she go into CATS?

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by Anonymousreply 86March 2, 2023 3:46 AM

It wasn't a linear change or a total break in character, but after "the Nurses" Hotlips tension with the other characters began to lessen and the character became uninteresting. The nicesness among the characters as the show dragged on was admired at thetime but its part of what makes the last half of the show's run pretty unwatchable now.

by Anonymousreply 87March 2, 2023 1:10 PM

[quote]I can relate to feeling left out of social groups at work from time to time.

What?! I'll ensure this does NOT happen again. You have my sincerest apologies.

by Anonymousreply 88March 2, 2023 2:09 PM

It's so silly when celebrities get nose jobs after their prime.

by Anonymousreply 89March 2, 2023 3:27 PM

[Quote] You gotta love people who do stuff like this and then get upset when everyone gets ticked off.

Actors are children, playing hide and ego seek.

by Anonymousreply 90March 2, 2023 3:28 PM

Who would play her in a hypothetical M*A*S*H reboot? Where are the Loretta Swits of yesteryear?

by Anonymousreply 91March 3, 2023 3:24 AM

She is a little old for it, but Diane Neal has the earthiness and humor--as well as the affordability for the part.

by Anonymousreply 92March 3, 2023 2:32 PM

I met her once outside a casino. Years ago. She was doing some sort of meet and greet, my mom was a fan of hers

by Anonymousreply 93March 3, 2023 5:42 PM

They made her do a Meet and Greet outside?

by Anonymousreply 94March 3, 2023 6:53 PM

She opens up about what she thought about the finale and why Margaret's relationship with Frank had to end.

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by Anonymousreply 96March 6, 2023 7:49 PM

R96 she sounds like a pain in the ass. Jackie Cooper was right!

by Anonymousreply 97March 7, 2023 12:40 AM

She was no middle seat, top tier Brett Somers.

by Anonymousreply 98March 7, 2023 12:45 AM

Nobody wants to talk about that ugly thing who died

by Anonymousreply 99March 7, 2023 12:46 AM

[quote] Nobody wants to talk about that ugly thing who died

I suppose the "ugly thing" you're referring to is Loretta Swit but FYI she's alive and kicking at age age 85. The members of the MASH cast who passed away are McLean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers, Larry Linville, Harry Morgan, and William Christopher. Also Alan Arbus and Edward Winter and Kellye Nakahara, who played Sidney Freedman, Colonel Flagg, and Nurse Kellye, respectively. The rest of the cast still standing are:

Alan Alda - age 87

Mike Farrell - age 84

Gary Burghoff - age 79

Jamie Farr - age 88

by Anonymousreply 100March 7, 2023 1:54 AM

She had nicer things to say about the finale on the EmmyTVLegends.

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by Anonymousreply 101March 7, 2023 1:58 AM

The only things I liked about the finale were:

The storyline featuring Charles and the Korean musicians. It was the most moving part of the whole show.

The very end where each of the cast members leaves one by one. Very, very sad.

by Anonymousreply 103March 7, 2023 2:06 AM

How were they able to dodge the fact that the Korean Conflict lasted less than four years and the show ran for ten?

by Anonymousreply 104March 7, 2023 2:08 AM

R96: The relationship with Frank had to end once she got married/divorce. But we didn't have nurses in Vietnam until about 10 years after Korea. Margaret was going to some peace time destination, regardless of location.

by Anonymousreply 105March 7, 2023 2:08 AM

[quote] How were they able to dodge the fact that the Korean Conflict lasted less than four years and the show ran for ten?

I think I heard Alan Alda say that each episode represented one day in the lives of everyone at the 4077. That might explain it.

by Anonymousreply 106March 7, 2023 2:49 AM

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Zora Stowers

Update: 2024-05-21