“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” earned Louise Fletcher the Oscar for Best Actress. However, she did not make her breakthrough with the 1970s cult film in Hollywood. The actress has died at the age of 88.
The actress Louise Fletcher, known from the cult film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, has died at the age of 88. Fletcher died in her sleep surrounded by her family at her home in Montdurausse, France, her agent David Shaul told the Associated Press. The cause of death was not disclosed.
In the 1975 film, starring Jack Nicholson, she gave a riveting performance as the cruel and calculating nurse Ratched. Her role set new standards for movie villains and earned her an Oscar in 1976. The character was so memorable that 45 years later it would form the basis of the Netflix series Ratched.
Fletcher was 40 when she starred in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Even more than her male peers, her age prevented her from getting major roles in Hollywood. Nevertheless, she worked continuously for most of the rest of her life. Her films included Mama Dracula, Dead Kids, and The Boy Who Could Fly.
She was nominated for an Emmy for her guest-starring roles on the television series Joan of Arcadia and Picket Fences, and had a recurring role as Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In “The Karen Carpenter Story” (1989) she played the mother of the musical duo Carpenters.
Fletcher married producer Jerry Bick in the early 1960s and gave birth to two sons in quick succession. She decided to put her career on hold to be a housewife and mother and did not work for 11 years. She divorced Bick in 1977, who died in 2004.
