# Loretta Swit: Hot or Not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759 "2014-03-03T16:55:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/61 "2015-05-18T14:57:07Z")
I think that Loretta Swit is a decently attractive woman in real life. But as a professional actress, she has learned to play beautiful OR ugly women, and can rise or fall to the level of attractiveness a role requires. Now, was Hot Lips Houlihan SUPPOSED to be stunningly beautiful? Well, I don’t know what Richard Hooker had in mind when he created her, but you know what? In all-male or largely-male environments (like the old West, or a 1950s Army base), there are a lot of extremely horny males who are so eager for a little female company that even a homely woman starts to look mighty good. In a setting like the Korean War, even a marginally attractive woman would have to fight off men with a baseball bat! ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/62 "2015-05-18T19:41:02Z")
I think Swit fit the character well. At least how it was portrayed on the television version of the show. You have to remember these were the '50s, when super good looking women became housewives, not cracker jack surgical nurses-in-charge. It’s made pretty clear she was smart, capable, and a little socially awkward. You can also pretty much read between the lines to figure out she got her rank not only for her intelligence and capability, but because she could be counted on for a good time and to keep her mouth shut afterwards. She has to have had a certain attractiveness to men in an era when such women were rare. Plus, as has been said, she had a good figure. I think, as an actress, she handled the role well. But I wouldn’t call her a beauty. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/63 "2015-05-18T20:14:03Z")
Attractiveness is situational and sexual availability influences desirability. A reasonably attractive woman in close proximity will be hotter than she would be in another context. I’m a male… probably a 7-8 in looks, and I would pretty much have sex with any willing woman at this point. I think I’d be pretty “hot” for her if I were working or living near her with limited options. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/64 "2015-05-19T22:32:00Z")
:eek::eek::eek: Not hot in any sense of the word; matched against Sally Kellerman. I have always thought that the TV show was a preachy too serious take on the movie. If they had called it something else and based it in Vietnam, maybe… ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/65 "2015-05-20T02:40:44Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > If they had called it something else and **based it in Vietnam** They didn’t? Sure seemed like it at the time! ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/66 "2015-05-20T23:27:13Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > The point wasn’t that she was a bombshell, but that she \*thought \*she was above average and that she had the hots for Frank. I actually read the book and there was nothing there that claimed she was a bombshell, though there was enough to imply that she had a good body (which Swit could claim). The rest was smoke and mirrors. This here. Although, I have to qualify the ‘above average’ phrase. I consider her a 6.3 at the most. (On her best day.) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/67 "2015-05-20T23:29:23Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > :eek::eek::eek: > I have always thought that the TV show was a preachy too serious take on the movie. If they had called it something else and based it in Vietnam, maybe… Again, this. The self righteousness was overbearing; fortunately, for the series, most of their 1970s audience was quite in line with this. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/68 "2015-05-21T11:28:08Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > This here. Although, I have to qualify the ‘above average’ phrase. I consider her a 6.3 at the most. (On her best day.) But again, in a setting where women are few and far between, men will flock to a 6.3 woman! ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/69 "2015-05-21T12:42:48Z")
> [@Mr.Kerchak](#): > > I think she was very sexy in early MASH. Maybe I’m biased by having watched her in my ‘formative’ years. I watched MASH in my ‘formative’ years as well. And she did nothing for my ‘over active meter’ at all. She barely registered as a woman, which was hard to do. Having said that, I think she was well cast. She was a pretty average, slightly older woman, that in a world of mostly men, might be considered sexy on the right day. Not stunning, not head turning, but under the right circumstances . . . ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/70 "2015-05-22T16:14:40Z")
I’m ambivalent. First, I thought she was well-cast for the role. I voted “no” but based on “star actress hotness” scale. As mentioned above, she doesn’t begin to compare with most of the walk-ons, extras, and Alda-flings in the nursing staff. But in real-life terms, she’s definitely an attractive woman. In any case, the “hot lips” moniker is already explained above. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/71 "2015-05-22T16:32:16Z")
I picked hot. The problem with her is her hair. So many of women’s hairdos in the 70s were just god awful. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/72 "2015-05-23T11:00:58Z")
She was a handsome woman. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2015, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/73 "2015-05-23T16:30:22Z")
[Here’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7-Y2K2o09j8#t=509) the episode “No Sweat” I mentioned earlier. Cued up to a suitable time. But there are several relevant scenes later. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/74 "2015-05-24T12:33:40Z")
Swit isn’t ugly. But her character of Hot Lips is a woman in a war zone. The guys are going to see her as _very_ desirable. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2015, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/75 "2015-05-24T12:53:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > But again, in a setting where women are few and far between, men will flock to a 6.3 woman! In any setting that’s not the internet or a Hollywood casting agency, men will flock to a 6.3 woman. :dubious: I vastly preferred [her original nose](http://www.lazygirls.info/Loretta_Swit/M_A_S_H_Loretta_Swit__KFHt0wMR) and wish she hadn’t let her agent talk her into surgery. The skinnier her nose got, the more off balance her wide face got. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/76 "2015-06-27T16:26:21Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > I’m ambivalent. First, I thought she was well-cast for the role. > > I voted “no” but based on “star actress hotness” scale. As mentioned above, she doesn’t begin to compare with most of the walk-ons, extras, and Alda-flings in the nursing staff. But in real-life terms, she’s definitely an attractive woman. I’d say she was at least as attractive as most of the other women on the show, though this may indicate a partialism for relatively plain women on the part of the show’s casting directors. MASH was never known for its eye candy. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/77 "2015-06-28T02:54:00Z")
I voted “no”. She never did anything at all for me, lookswise. But I’ll qualify my “no” by saying that I only know her from MASH reruns that I watched when I was 18, and for all intents and purposes, she was my mom’s generation, playing a character set in the 1950s, which had a different standard of beauty from the one I grew up with (1970s & '80s). She’s not unattractive; I just don’t find her “hot”. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/78 "2015-06-28T04:49:48Z")
She was well-cast; sexy enough that you could imagine wanting to sleep with her, but not so sexy that you’d side with her against Hawkeye/Trapper/Hunnicutt. Kind of like Louise Fletcher in **One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest** : a more beautiful woman in the role would have made it hard to sympathize with the protagonist hating her. ---
**Author:** ![RobotDevilDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19adc/32.png) [@RobotDevilDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobotDevilDog)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759/79 "2015-06-30T06:28:07Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Michelle Phillips (Mackenzie’s stepmother) was Lt. Dish in a few first-season episodes (she was played by Jo Ann Pflug in the movie), but was soon dropped along with most of the supporting cast. I just wanted to mention that Michelle Phillips was never in M_A_S\*H, either as Lt. Dish or any other character. You must have confused her with a different actress. In the 2 episodes where Lt. Dish appeared, she was played by Karen Philipp. Similar last name, I suppose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loretta-swit-hot-or-not/682759.md?page=3)