R.I.P. Judy Farrell, M*A*S*H's Nurse Able

Judy Farrell, who is best known for playing Nurse Able in the hit ‘70s drama M*A*S*H, died on Sunday after suffering a major stroke nine days earlier. Her son, Michael, reported the news to TMZ today. She was 84.

Farrell’s M*A*S*H co-star Loretta Swift also gave a statement. “Judy was a most beautiful woman – inside and out. We grew up together,” she told Fox News. “She was family. This has been a painful loss, but we will always have the beauty of her memory. Rest in peace, Nurse Able.”

Farrell appeared in eight episodes of M*A*S*H as the Korean War nurse Able opposite Alan Alda as Hawkeye. She was also married to her co-star, Mike Farrell (who played B.J. Hunnicutt), for 20 years starting in 1963. The couple would divorce in 1983 but not before serving as the subtle inspiration for a 1976 episode, “The Colonel’s Horse,” in which B.J.’s fictional father-in-law shared the same maiden name as Judy Farrell (née Hayden) and grew up in Quapaw, Oklahoma, the town in which Judy was born.

After the divorce, Farrell married actor and producer Joe Bratcher in 1985. She has two children, Michael and Erin. (The name Erin was also used for B.J.’s daughter in M*A*S*H.)

In addition to M*A*S*H, Farrell also starred in a number of small roles over the years. Her career began with parts in the 1969 series Judd For The Defense and Get Smart. She has also appeared in an episode of the 1970 medical drama The Interns, the 1971 film J W Coop, The Partridge Family (1974), the TV movie Intimate Strangers (1977), the crime series Quincy M.E. (1977), and Fame (1982), in which she guest starred as Mrs. Charlotte Miller in four episodes, among others. She also wrote for TV and is credited with one episode of Fame (“Friendship Day,” which aired in 1983) and thirteen episodes of the 1997 General Hospital spinoff, Port Charles.

Her last role was in the 2006 dating comedy Long-Term Relationship, which was directed by Rob Williams.