Dennis Holahan & Loretta Swit — They Divorced 30 Years Ago. He Still Came to Her Funeral.
June 2025.
The funeral of Loretta Swit.
The church was full.
Front row:
Alan Alda, 89.
Jamie Farr, 91.
Mike Farrell, 86.
Gary Burghoff, 81.
The family.
The cast.
The people who loved her for decades.
And in the very last row…
a man no one expected to see.
Dennis Holahan.
83 years old.
Her ex-husband.
They had been divorced for thirty years.
They hadn’t shared a home since the 1990s.
But he came anyway.
He walked in quietly, holding a small box in his hands.
He didn’t look around.
Didn’t search for anyone.
He just took a seat in the back.
Close enough to say goodbye.
People whispered.
“Is that Dennis?”
“Her ex-husband?”
“Why is he here?”
Dennis heard them.
He didn’t care.
As the service began, Alan Alda stood and spoke about Loretta.
About Margaret Houlihan.
About the fight to turn a stereotype into a woman with dignity.
About the joy of the day the script finally read “Margaret enters.”
Dennis listened.
And remembered.
1982
The MASH* set.
Dennis was a lawyer who sometimes acted.
He landed a small guest role — a Swedish diplomat.
One episode.
That was all it was supposed to be.
Then he met her.
Loretta Swit.
Not on television.
Not as “Hot Lips.”
But right there, in front of him.
She looked at the call sheet and laughed.
“Your name is Holahan?”
“Yes.”
“Like Houlihan?”
“One letter different.”
She smiled.
“That’s either a coincidence…
or destiny.”
It was destiny.
For twelve years.
They married in December 1983, three months after MASH* ended.
Small ceremony.
Close friends.
Alan gave the toast.
“Hot Lips finally found her real Houlihan,” he joked.
“Only his spelling is worse.”
Loretta laughed the loudest.
“You’re my Houlihan now,” she whispered to Dennis.
“Forever.”
They traveled the world.
Shared quiet dinners.
Built a life that didn’t belong to television.
They never had children.
“My children were my roles,” Loretta once said.
“And Margaret was my daughter.”
Dennis understood.
He just needed her.
In 1995, they divorced.
Not from betrayal.
Not from anger.
They just grew in different directions.
“Twelve good years,” Loretta said.
“That’s more than most people get.”
They stayed friends.
Birthday calls.
Christmas cards.
The occasional lunch.
The last one was in 2024.
“Are you happy?” Dennis asked.
Loretta thought.
“I had MAS*H.
I had Margaret.
I had the best work of my life.”
Then she looked at him.
“And I had you.
For twelve years.
Someone who saw me.”
Now he was here.
At her funeral.
Holding that small box.
When the service ended, people lined up to say goodbye.
Alan.
Jamie.
Mike.
Gary.
Dennis waited until everyone else was done.
Then he walked forward.
Slowly.
He opened the box.
Inside was a photograph.
Their wedding day.
December 21, 1983.
On the back, in Loretta’s handwriting:
“To my Houlihan.
Thank you for twelve years.
Thank you for seeing me.
Not Hot Lips.
Not Margaret.
Me.
You spelled it wrong —
and loved me right.
Forever,
Loretta.”
Dennis placed the photo beside her hand.
“Take it with you,” he whispered.
“So you remember.”
As he turned to leave, Alan Alda was standing behind him.
“You came,” Alan said.
“Of course I came.”
“It’s been thirty years.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other —
two old men
who loved the same woman
in different ways
for different lengths of time.
“She talked about you,” Alan said quietly.
“Even after the divorce.”
Dennis nodded.
“Some people change you forever,” he said.
“She was that person for me.”
Alan placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you for loving her.”
Dennis walked out of the church alone.
An ex-husband.
A former actor.
A man whose name was one letter off.
One letter from Houlihan.
One letter from destiny.
And he had loved her right.
For twelve years.
For forty-two years.
For the rest of his life.
The California sun was blinding as he stepped out of the heavy wooden doors.
A stark contrast to the quiet shadow of the sanctuary.
Reporters were gathered near the gates.
Cameras flashed.
Microphones were thrust toward the familiar, grieving faces of his former castmates.
They wanted quotes about a television legend.
They wanted stories about Major Margaret Houlihan.
They wanted a piece of history.
Dennis walked past them.
Unnoticed.
Just an older gentleman in a dark, tailored suit walking to his car.
That was exactly how Loretta would have wanted it.
Their life had always been theirs alone.
Not the world’s.
Not the network’s.
He unlocked his car and sat in the driver’s seat.
For a long time, he didn’t start the engine.
He just gripped the steering wheel, staring out at the hazy Los Angeles skyline.
Thirty years is a long time to be apart.
People usually assume a divorce is a failure.
A sudden stop.
The closing of a book.
But as Dennis sat there in the quiet, he knew the truth.
Love doesn’t always end when a marriage does.
Sometimes, it just changes shape.
It softens into respect.
It becomes a quiet, enduring gratitude.
He finally turned the key.
The drive home was a blur of memories.
Not of the red carpets or the awards shows.
But of quiet Tuesday mornings.
The smell of her coffee.
The way she fiercely loved animals.
The way she would read a script, muttering the lines under her breath until they sounded like music.
When he arrived at his house, the rooms felt impossibly still.
He walked slowly into his study.
There, on a shelf lined with heavy legal texts and old leather-bound books, sat a single, small frame.
It wasn’t a wedding photo.
He had given that one back to her today.
It was a candid Polaroid.
Slightly faded at the edges.
Taken on a rainy afternoon in Paris, 1988.
Loretta was sitting at a small bistro table, a scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.
No heavy television makeup.
No olive drab uniform.
Just Loretta, mid-laugh, her eyes crinkling at something silly he had just said.
He picked up the frame.
His thumb gently brushed the glass.
“Goodbye, my girl,” he said to the empty room.
Tomorrow, the newspapers would run their tributes.
Fans across the world would turn on their televisions and watch the 4077th.
They would cry as the chopper flew away and the stones spelled out “GOODBYE.”
The world would mourn Hot Lips.
But Dennis Holahan didn’t need a screen to remember her.
He had the twelve years.
He had the quiet lunches.
He had the absolute certainty that, in a town built entirely on make-believe, what they had shared was real.
He placed the photograph carefully back on the shelf.
He had spelled the name wrong.
But he had loved her right.
And that would be enough.
