by Nathaniel R
The original "Hot Lips" Houlihan, actress Sally Kellerman has passed away at 84 after a battle with dementia. The willowy California blonde landed her first screen role when she was just a teenager in the B movie Reform School Girl (1957) after which she paid her dues with over a decade's worth of guest spots on various television series and small movie roles. Fame took its time arriving. She finally broke through as the lusty nurse in Robert Altman's hit war comedy MASH (1970), landing an Oscar nomination...
As Major Margaret 'Hot Lips' Houlihan in "MASH"
That blockbuster quickly become an even more phenomenally success TV series but only one of the film's cast, Gary Burghoff as "Radar", transferred over to repeat their role. Her fine work as 'Hot Lips' Houlihan led to multiple stints in Robert Altman movies though oddly she turned down the Karen Black role in his masterpiece Nashville (1976). It also led to frequent casting as lusty and neurotic women.
While her subsequent films never captured the zeitgeist in the same way as MASH (a tall tall order) she enjoyed a fairly steady career in film and on television for a long time thereafter with a minor music career on the side releasing two albums. Her screen performances stretch from 1957 through an indie currently in post called Underwater Upside Down (at least according to IMDb).
With Jodie Foster in FOXES (1980)
Key films from her filmography include The Boston Strangler (1968) with Tony Curtis, April Fools (1969) where she plays Jack Lemmon's wife, Brewster McCloud (1970), the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972), the crime comedy Slither (1973) with James Caan. And, as happens to all actresses who endure, a sudden shift to mom roles though she started those with a bang playing the mothers of two very popular teenage stars in well received movies, Diane Lane (A Little Romance, 1979) and Jodie Foster (Foxes, 1980). Her peak in the 1980s was the second billed role in another smash hit comedy Back to School (1986) though that was essentially the Rodney Dangerfield show. And she always returned to Robert Altman so she's in the noisy mix of his ensemble flick Pret-a-Porter (1994), too. She was a big enough star in her time that she even played herself in two showbiz movies, The Player (1992) and I Could Never Be Your Woman (2011).
Three years before her death she released her memoirs "Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life" Perhaps we'll read it in her honor soon. Have you ever seen her Oscar-nominated performance in MASH? We discussed it at length a few years back.