Loretta Swit, who won two Emmy awards for her role on the popular comedy TV series M*A*S*H, died on Friday, according to her representative.

She died at her home in New York at age 87, her publicist Harlan Boll told the BBC. She likely died of natural causes, although a coroner’s report is pending.

On M*A*S*H, Swit played US Army nurse Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The series, which followed a mobile Army surgical hospital during the Korean war, ran for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983.

Swit was nominated for numerous awards, and appeared in nearly every episode of the series, including the finale which attracted a record 106m US viewers.

The show remains one of the most successful and acclaimed series in US television history. Its season finale was the most watched episode of any TV series in history when it ended in 1983.

As “Hot Lips,” Swit played a tough but vulnerable Army nurse who gained the nickname after having an affair with Major Frank Burns, who was played by Larry Linville.

The show used comedy and pranks to tackle tough issues like racism, sexism and the impacts of PTSD within the military, at a time when US forces were withdrawing from Vietnam and dealing with the consequences of that conflict.

It was based on the 1968 book, “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors,” penned by a former Army surgeon.

Swit was born Loretta Szwed in New Jersey and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Along with M*A*S*H, she also appeared in numerous other TV shows, movies and even game shows over her career.

She took to the Broadway stage in plays including Same Time, Next Year; Mame; and Shirley Valentine – a role for which she won Chicago’s top theatre prize, the Sarah Siddons Award.

Her TV work included appearances on The Muppet Show, Mission: Impossible and Murder, She Wrote.

In addition to her Emmys, Swit was nominated for four Golden Globe awards.

“Acting is not hiding to me, it’s revealing. We give you license to feel,” she said in an interview with the Star magazine in 2010. “That’s the most important thing in the world, because when you stop feeling, that’s when you’re dead.”

Speaking to an author about her character on M*A*S*H she said: “Around the second or third year, I decided to try to play her as a real person, in an intelligent fashion, even if it meant hurting the jokes. … She was a character in constant flux; she never stopped developing.”

Swit was also an artist and animal rights activist, and established a charity to campaign against animal cruelty, according to a statement from her publicist Mr Boll.

Jamie Farr, who also starred in M*A*S*H as Corporal Klinger, called Swit his “adopted sister”.

“From the first time I met her, on what was supposed to be a one-day appearance on M*A*S*H, we embraced each other and that became a lifetime friendship,” Farr said in a statement. “I can’t begin to express how much she will be missed.”

(BBC News)

Anudi Gunasekara has made history for Sri Lanka by clinching the title of First Runner-Up from Asia in the Miss World Multimedia challenge at the 72nd Miss World Festival held in Telangana, India.

This places her in the global Top 20 and earned her a position among the Top 8 winners worldwide -an unprecedented feat for a Sri Lankan contestant.

It was also Sri Lanka’s first-ever placement in the Top 20 of three Miss World fast-track events: Talent, Head-to-Head Challenge, and Multimedia.

Australian actress Deborra-Lee Furness has said her “compassion goes out to everyone who has traversed the traumatic journey of betrayal”, after filing for divorce from her husband Hugh Jackman.

In a statement released to media, Furness, 69, said: “It’s a profound wound that cuts deep, however I believe in a higher power and that God/the universe… is always working FOR us.”

The couple filed for divorce in New York on 23 May. They announced their separation in September 2023 after 27 years of marriage.

Hugh Jackman, best known for playing Wolverine in the X-men film series, has not responded directly to Furness’s statement.

Furness said that she had gained “much knowledge and wisdom” from the “breakdown” of her marriage to Jackman, 56.

“Sometimes the universe has to create arduous circumstances for us to walk through in order to find our way home, back to our true essence and the sovereignty of self love.”

“It can hurt, but in the long run, returning to yourself and living within your own integrity, values and boundaries is liberation and freedom,” she added, in the statement first issued to the Daily Mail.

When Furness and Jackman announced their separation in 2023, the couple issued a joint statement which they said was “the sole statement either of us will make”.

“Our journey now is shifting and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth… We undertake this next chapter with gratitude, love and kindness,” they said at the time.

The pair met on the set of the Australian TV show Corelli in 1995, shortly after Jackman had left drama school.

They married the following year and later adopted two children.

Since Furness issued the statement, Jackman, currently performing in New York, posted a video to Instagram in which he is skipping to the NYSNC song Bye Bye Bye.

(BBC News)