Oscar-nominated ‘MASH’ actor Sally Kellerman dies at 84

Kellerman said Altman brought out the best in her.

“It was a very freeing, positive experience,” she told Dick Cavett in a 1970 TV interview. “For the first time in my life I took chances, I didn’t suck in my cheeks, or worry about anything.”

The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, but her best supporting actress was its only acting nod despite a cast that included Duvall, Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould.

The movie would be turned into a TV series that lasted 11 seasons, with Loretta Swit in Kellerman’s role.

Sally Clare Kellerman was born in 1937 in Long Beach, California, the daughter of a piano teacher and an oil executive, moving to Los Angeles as a child and attending Hollywood High School.

Her initial interest was in jazz singing, and she was signed to a contract with Verve records at age 18. She opted to pursue acting and didn’t put out any music until 1972, when she released the album “Roll With the Feeling.” She would sing on the side, and sometimes in roles, throughout her career, releasing her last album, “Sally,” in 2007.

She took an acting class at Los Angeles City College and appeared in a stage production of “Look Back in Anger” with classmate Jack Nicholson and several other future stars.