A braider separates pieces of synthetic braiding hair to prepare for a client at Eve’s African Braiding in College Park, Ga., Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Traffic crosses a bridge at Woodhead Reservoir in Derbyshire as England experiences a significant drought, with reservoir levels at 84% of capacity, lower than the 90% seen in 2022, in Woodhead, England, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)Traffic crosses a bridge at Woodhead Reservoir in Derbyshire as England experiences a significant drought, with reservoir levels at 84% of capacity, lower than the 90% seen in 2022, in Woodhead, England, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Jon Super)
Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson, centre, celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the Europa League final soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at the San Mames Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)Tottenham’s Brennan Johnson, centre, celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the Europa League final soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United at the San Mames Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)A woman sits on speakers playing music during a Red Devils bus exhibition in La Chorrera, Panama, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
A woman sits on speakers playing music during a Red Devils bus exhibition in La Chorrera, Panama, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)Umberto Rispoli, left, atop Journalism, edges out Luis Saez, atop Gosger, to win the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Umberto Rispoli, left, atop Journalism, edges out Luis Saez, atop Gosger, to win the 150th running of the Preakness Stakes horse race Saturday, May 17, 2025, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Children play in the waves on the Yemeni island of Socotra, on Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)Sally Kellerman played Houlihan in the movie version and Swit took it over for TV, eventually deepening and creating her into a much fuller character. Her sexuality was played down and she wasn’t even called “Hot Lips” in the later years.
The growing awareness of feminism in the ’70s spurred Houlihan’s transformation from caricature to real person, but a lot of the change was due to Swit’s influence on the scriptwriters.“Around the second or third year I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes,” Swit told Suzy Kalter, author of “The Complete Book of ‘M.A.S.H.’”
“To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn’t go into the next episode as if it were a different character in a different play. She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.”Alda praised Swit as a “supremely talented actor” in a