Loretta Swit

Wanted to leave M*A*S*H (1972) after the 8th season, but FOX wouldn't let her out of her contract. She has said that she wanted to star in the series Cagney & Lacey (1981), after she made the pilot movie, but her MASH commitment prevented her from doing so.

Hot Lips changed a lot in eleven years. Initially Margaret Houlihan behaved as though a man were the only thing that could complete her life, and she didn't see what richness her life contained. She gained a lot of self-esteem through the years, and she came to realize that what she did, what she offered, was valuable. To oversimplify it, I took each traumatic change that happened in her life and kept it. I didn't discard anything. I didn't go on 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.