US actress Sally Kellerman, whose roles included Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s 1970 film M*A*S*H, has died at the age of 84.
Her role in the dark comedy about US Army medics in the Korean war earned her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
She worked with director Altman again on films including Brewster McCloud, The Player and Pret-a-Porter.
Star Trek fans fondly remember her for the role of Dr Elizabeth Dehner in the original TV series’ second pilot.
Co-star William Shatner wrote on Twitter that he was “sending condolences to the family of Sally Kellerman”.
The actress’s other film roles included 1972’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers opposite Alan Arkin, 1973’s Slither alongside James Caan, 1976’s Welcome To LA with Keith Carradine, 1979’s A Little Romance with Laurence Olivier, and as Jodie Foster’s mother in 1980’s Foxes.
On the small screen, she starred in the major mini-series Centennial, which went out in 1978 and 79, and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2015 for a guest role in US soap opera The Young and the Restless.
She also played Marc Maron’s bohemian mother in his sitcom Maron. “Sally Kellerman was radiant and beautiful and fun and so great to work with,” Maron wrote on Twitter. “My real mom was very flattered and a bit jealous. I’m sad she’s gone.”
When M*A*S*H moved to TV, Kellerman didn’t reprise the role of “Hot Lips”, with Loretta Swit taking over in the series that ran from 1972 to 83.
TV writer Gennefer Gross said of Kellerman on Twitter: “Her voice, her impeccable comedic timing, her ability to shift between silly and smouldering and hold her own in barracks full of Army men. She was one of a kind.”
-Source: BBC
