LOS ANGELES — Sally Kellerman, the Oscar and Emmy nominated actor who played Margaret « Hot Lips » Houlihan in director Robert Altman’s 1970 film « MASH, » …
LOS ANGELES — Sally Kellerman, the Oscar and Emmy nominated actor who played Margaret « Hot Lips » Houlihan in director Robert Altman’s 1970 film « MASH, » died Thursday. Kellerman died of heart failure at her home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, her manager and publicist Alan Eichler said. She was 84. Kellerman had a career of more than 60 years in film and television. She played a college professor who was returning student Rodney Dangerfield’s love interest in the 1986 comedy « Back to School. » And she was a regular in Altman’s films, appearing in 1970’s « Brewster McCloud, » 1992’s « The Player » and 1994’s « Ready to Wear. » But she would always be best known for playing Major Houlihan, a straitlaced, by-the-book Army nurse who is tormented by rowdy doctors during the Korean War in the army comedy « MASH. » In the film’s key scene, and its peak moment of misogyny, a tent where Houlihan is showering is pulled open and she is exposed to an audience of cheering men. « This isn’t a hospital, this is an insane asylum! » she screams at her commanding officer. She carries on a torrid affair with the equally uptight Major Frank Burns, played by Robert Duvall, demanding that he kiss her « hot lips » in a moment secretly broadcast over the camp’s public address speakers, earning her the nickname.
