‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ Oscar Winner Louise Fletcher Dies
The actor, who was also known for roles on ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ and ‘Picket Fences’, died at home in France.
Louise Fletcher in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.' Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. YouTube channel.
Louise Fletcher, whose subtle, creepy performance seared a classic, conflicted movie villain into the public consciousness – and won an Academy Award in the process - has died. She was 88.
Estelle Louise Fletcher was born in 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama. Her father was an episcopal priest and both of her parents were deaf. That would lead to an emotional element when she won her Oscar for ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’; she utilized sign language as part of her acceptance speech.
Introduced to acting by an aunt she and her siblings spent a year and further summers with to ensure they learned to speak, she attended school at the University of North Carolina and then headed to Los Angeles, where she started to find acting work making guest appearances on shows such as ‘Bat Masterson’, ‘Maverick’, ‘The Untouchables’, ‘Wagon Train’, and ‘Perry Mason’.
Yet after an uncredited movie debut in ‘A Gathering of Eagles’, she decided to give up acting and focus on family. It was Robert Altman who persuaded her to return to the screen for 1974’s ‘Thieves Like Us’. Her performance caught the attention of Milos Forman, who thought she might be right for ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s rigid, rule-enforcing Nurse Ratched.
In addition to the Academy Award, she became only the third woman to win the BAFTA and the Golden Globe for a single performance.
(L to R) Producer Michael Douglas, director Miloš Forman, Louise Fletcher, and Jack Nicholson from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' at the 48th Academy Awards. Photo courtesy of Oscars.org.
A less fruitful period followed. Though she worked fairly consistently, she suffered typecasting, appearing as doctors, psychiatrists and authority figures in movies such as ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’ and had the title role in ‘The Lady in Red’. She also appeared in ‘Strange Behavior’, 'Strange Invaders’ the original ‘Firestarter’, ‘Invaders from Mars’ and ‘Flowers in the Attic’.
She had more luck reuniting with Altman for Hollywood satire ‘The Player’ and working on ‘Blue Steel’ for director Kathryn Bigelow.
Fletcher had more luck on TV, starring in TV Movies including ‘The Karen Carpenter Story’ and scoring an Emmy nomination for series ‘Picket Fences’ as a woman who rejects her deaf daughter (played by fellow Oscar winner Marlee Matlin).
Sci-fi fans will know her best as Kai Winn, the scheming religious leader from the planet Bajor in ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’, who sought political power and went to great lengths to achieve it.
She would go on to describe the feeling of winning her Oscar as exhilarating but fleeting, and she was glad she didn’t win earlier in her career. “I got the Oscar when I was 41,” Fletcher told the New York Times. “If I was 23, it would have been hard to deal with. Hell, at my age it was hard to deal with. It was like being thrown an explosive.”
Fletcher died at her home in Montdurausse, France, surrounded by family.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
