Sally Kellerman, ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan in ‘M*A*S*H’ movie, dies at 84
Sally Kellerman, who was Oscar nominated for her supporting role as Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” attribute film, died Thursday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 84.
Her publicist Alan Eichler verified her death.
Amongst her other roles have been a cameo in Altman’s “The Participant,” a professor in Rodney Dangerfield’s “Back to School” and a Starfleet officer in the “Star Trek” episode, “Where No Person Has Long gone Before.”
The willowy blonde actress with the characteristically throaty voice appeared in two Altman films in 1970 the other was the far more experimental “Brewster McCloud,” in which she starred with Bud Cort and Michael Murphy. In this film, which did not have a traditional narrative, Kellerman played Louise, the mother of the bewinged Cort character, Brewster.
She starred next reverse Alan Arkin in the Gene Saks-directed Neil Simon effort “Last of the Red Scorching Lovers” the Cleveland Press explained: “Sally Kellerman as the to start with lady tends to make out the best, managing to be both of those alluring and hostile. She’s good with a put-down and her retorts have bite.”
She starred with James Caan in the goofy 1973 road motion picture “Slither” (in which the actress played a witch, no considerably less) and was among the starry forged of the musical variation of “Lost Horizon.” Kellerman reteamed with Arkin together with a youthful Mackenzie Philips for another wacky street movie, 1975’s “Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins,” then was portion of the starry cast assembled for the spoof disaster motion picture “The Big Bus.”
In 1976’s “Welcome to L.A.,” created by Altman acolyte Alan Rudolph (and developed by Altman), Kellerman played a real estate agent, frantic for the reason that her partner is cheating on her, who is amid the females that a songwriter performed by Keith Carradine sleeps with throughout a sojourn in Los Angeles.
She appeared in the critically acclaimed “Great Performances” outing “Verna: USO Girl,” starring Sissy Spacek. Selection said: “Kellerman, singing in a whiskey baritone or dropping supposedly innovative feedback, displays that unique sort of blasé frame of mind that WWII curtailed, if it did not kill it.”
Returning to tv, exactly where she experienced started, Kellerman experienced a main part in NBC’s mammoth 1978 “Centennial” miniseries, starring as Raymond Burr’s daughter, who marries the fur trapper Pasquinel, performed by Robert Conrad, who is central to the tale.
The actress played the mom of a quite younger Diane Lane in the pleasant “A Little Romance,” but the concentration listed here was on the teenager enthusiasts Kellerman and Arthur Hill had been in the photograph to have a troubled marriage from which Lane’s character sought escape. Kellerman experienced a additional intriguing purpose in her up coming photograph, the teenager-girls-go-astray pic “Foxes,” in which she and Jodie Foster established in a few scenes a believably challenging mom-daughter partnership.
In the early 1980s Kellerman started to do a series of Television set movies, which includes “Big Blonde,” primarily based on the Dorothy Parker story, and “September Gun,” a Western in which she played madam Mama Queen.
She returned to the bigscreen for the by-product comedy “Moving Violations,” in which she performed a scheming choose, and the subsequent 12 months starred in the Rodney Dangerfield auto “Back to University,” in which she performed the love desire, a attractive professor.
In Blake Edwards’ “That’s Life,” starring Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews, she performed a helpful neighbor, then segued to “Meatballs III.”
Thankfully she quickly located a section in Henry Jaglom’s 1987 movie “Someone to Adore,” in which she performed what the New York Situations explained as “an actress with out an unmannered bone in her entire body,” and in 1993 she appeared in Percy Adlon’s “Younger and Younger,” starring Donald Sutherland and Lolita Davidovich.
She starred with Dave Thomas in “Boris and Natasha,” a stay-action adaptation of the Jay Ward cartoon, in 1992.
Returning to perform for Robert Altman for the 1st time considering that the 1970s, Kellerman was among the the starry casts of exceptional Hollywood satire “The Player” (1992), in which she cameo’d as herself, and 1994’s considerably less productive, Paris couture-centered “Ready to Use,” in which she performed a magazine editor involved in a rivalry with other folks. The actress afterwards appeared in a 1997 episode of the short ABC series “Gun” directed by Altman.
In 1997 Kellerman and spouse Jonathan D. Krane created the movie “The Lay of the Land,” centered on a enjoy by Mel Shapiro in which the actress had beforehand starred. Kellerman and Ed Begley Jr. toplined the movie, but it did not generate important or well known support.
The actress joined Dyan Cannon and Brenda Vaccaro in Susan Seidelman’s 2005 bittersweet comedy “Boynton Beach front Club,” about girls in their 6os pursuing romance in a South Florida enclave. Referring to Kellerman as “lean, blond, flashing her crocodile grin,” the New York Instances claimed the film’s most touching scenes notice the anxious re-entry into the relationship planet of Len Cariou’s character, who, “under the patient ministrations” of Kellerman’s character, “regains his sexual self esteem.”
She experienced recurred on daytime cleaning soap “The Youthful and the Restless” as the mysterious Constance Bingham.
In 2011 Kellerman played a woman with dementia in a retirement property in the film “Night Club,” which also starred Mickey Rooney and Ernest Borgnine in 2014 the actress was part of the substantial ensemble solid of “Reach Me,” about the effect of an inspirational e-book on a wide variety of individuals.
In the 1990s and 2000s the actress guested on Television set collection together with “Evening Shade,” “Murder, She Wrote,” HBO’s “Dream On,” Tea Leoni series “The Naked Real truth,” “Touched by an Angel,” “Diagnosis Murder,” “Columbo,” “Providence” and “90210.” Additional just lately she recurred on IFC collection “Maron” as Marc Maron’s bohemian mom.
Specified her attractive, intriguing voice, the actress naturally did voicework: Her credits involved 1985 aspect “Sesame Avenue Offers: Observe that Bird” (Skip Finch), 1990 animated element “Happily Ever Soon after,” ABC collection “Dinosaurs” and Fx sequence “Unsupervised” she was also the voice at the rear of Concealed Valley ranch dressing, Mercedes-Benz and Revlon.
Kellerman was also a singer, who signed a recording contract with Verve Records when she 18, while her first album, “Roll With the Feelin ’,” was not recorded right until 1972. Her 2nd album, “Sally,” was launched in 2009. The actress also contributed songs to the soundtracks for “Brewster McCloud,” “Lost Horizon,” “Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins” and “Boris and Natasha: The Film,” among the other individuals.
Sally Claire Kellerman was born in Long Seashore, Calif. She began her showbiz vocation by getting Jeff Corey’s performing class, soon following which she appeared in a Corey-staged manufacturing of “Look Back in Anger” that also showcased her classmates Shirley Knight, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell and Robert Blake. In the late 1950s, Kellerman joined the recently opened Actors Studio West.
She created her function debut in 1957’s “Reform School Girls” and future appeared on the bigscreen in 1962’s “Hands of a Stranger,”1965’s “The 3rd Day” and “The Lollipop Cover.” Her very first superior-profile movie was 1968’s “The Boston Stranger,” starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda, in which she experienced a supporting function as a sufferer of the strangler who survives his attack but does not try to remember something about him. She also experienced a supporting function in the 1969 film “The April Fools” as the spouse of Jack Lemmon, who has an affair with Catherine Deneuve, just before breaking out the up coming calendar year in “M*A*S*H” the subsequent yr.
The actress worked largely in television through the 1960s, showing notably as Dr. Elizabeth Dehner in an episode of unique “Star Trek” sequence known as “Where No Man Has Gone Prior to.” Other Television set credits during the period of time include “Twilight Zone,” “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “The Lots of Loves of Dobie Gillis,” “My A few Sons,” “The Outer Restrictions,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “I Spy,” “That Lady,” “Hawaii 5-O” and “Mannix.”
Kellerman’s memoir, “Read My Lips: Tales of a Hollywood Lifetime,” was posted in 2013.
She was married to Tv set writer-director Rick Edelstein for two yrs in the early 1970s. Kellerman married author-producer Jonathan D. Krane in 1980 and he died in 2016.