Join MeTV all next week as we remember Loretta Swit with specially selected episodes of M*A*S*H featuring Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan.

Loretta Swit, best know for her role as Maj. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on 240 episodes of the award-winning series M*A*S*H, has passed away.

Swit started her show business career in 1967, the same year that she joined a production of The Odd Couple, where she played one of the Pigeon sisters opposite stars Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine.

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By 1970, Swit moved to Los Angeles and quickly began working on the small screen. She appeared as guest roles on shows like Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, and Gunsmoke. Swit took small roles in popular series with the goal of getting noticed by networks and being offered something bigger; perhaps a TV movie. Her hard work paid off when CBS asked her if she might be interested in auditioning for a TV adaptation of a movie called M*A*S*H. They needed someone to play the role originated by Sally Kellerman, and she fit.

It was a risky move on CBS' part: Swit had primarily played dramatic roles on TV, and they didn't know if her comedic chops from the stage would carry over to the screen. When Swit was offered a role in a movie for Universal that would conflict with M*A*S*H's filming schedule, her agent informed CBS, and they decided to give the part to Swit.

That risk paid off. Not only did Swit prove to have the comedy skills needed, but she was nominated for ten Emmys for the role — one for each year the series was on-air, except the first — and won two. Swit, along with Alan Alda, was one of only two actors to be in both the pilot and the finale episode, and their kiss in the finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" has been called the "most expensive kiss in TV history" due to the huge price tag that advertising in the hotly-anticipated finale claimed.

Her cohorts had nothing but good things to say about Swit on set. "I don't think people know how hard these people worked," M*A*S*H creator Larry Gelbart told the Television Academy. "Loretta was always just the most hard-working."

It seems like everybody can cite an example. Farr said unlike some starlets whose hair and makeup could delay set start times, Swit was always ready for cameras to roll. M*A*S*H medical consultant Walter Dishell said she was always interested in doing things exactly right to portray her character authentically, as "an excellent nurse that people depended on." Gelbart said he could always count on her to take the material he provided well beyond what even he imagined.

"I wrote her once that I polished the words, but she made them shine," Gelbart said. "She always surprised me. She always found a little something I didn't see in the line that just enhanced it and made it that much better."

Swit took her work seriously. "I like to play a strong character," Swit said in a 1982 interview. "I don't like to see women portrayed as inferior or weak."

In another 1972 interview, she added "Hot Lips is obnoxious at times. But I always look for something amusing about her so audiences will laugh instead of just being angry with her."

In 1981, Swit filmed another famous pilot — the crime drama Cagney & Lacey, where she portrayed Christine Cagney. Unfortunately scheduling conflicts led to her dropping out, and eventually Sharon Gless would go on to play the character.

After M*A*S*H, Swit continued to appear on TV, including a career as a frequent guest on game shows such as Pyramid, Match Game, and Hollywood Squares.

In her personal life, Swit was a champion for animal welfare causes. She served as a spokesperson for the Humane Society. In 2016, she founded SwitHeart Animal Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to ending animal cruelty. In 1986 she worked with fellow M*A*S*H co-star Mike Farrell to host PBS special Saving the Wildlife.

The actress and activist was 87 years old.