Louise Fletcher, who won the best actress Oscar for her indelible performance as Nurse Ratched in Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” died Friday at her home in France, according to a rep. She was 88.
The classic film, based on Ken Kesey’s novel and exploring the repressive tendency of authority through the story of the patients and staff of a psych ward, won five Oscars in 1976, including best picture and best actor for Jack Nicholson.Michael Montfort / Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Ironically, the Ratched character had been softened in the script compared to Kesey’s original, and Fletcher gave a rather subtle performance, often conveying the character’s emotions simply through facial expressions, which is why she deserved her Oscar in the first place. Indeed, the actress even enables us to feel sorry for Ratched at more than one key moment in the film.
On TV, Fletcher had played family matriarch Peggy “Grammy” Gallagher, a cunning ex-con who nevertheless wanted a relationship with her grandchildren, on Showtime’s “Shameless.” The actress recurred on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” as the scheming, duplicitous spiritual leader Winn Adami from 1993-99, on cult sci-fier “VR.5” from 1995-97 and on “ER” in 2005.
Estelle Louise Fletcher was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Her parents were deaf; she was introduced to acting by the aunt who taught her, at age 8, to speak. Fletcher attended the University of North Carolina; after taking a cross-country trip, she became stranded in Los Angeles and soon stumbled into acting.
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