Louise Fletcher passed away on Friday at her home in France. She was most known for her iconic portrayal of Nurse Ratched in Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” for which she won the Oscar for best actress. She was 88.
The legendary movie, adapted from Ken Kesey’s novel and focused on the patients and personnel of a mental hospital, won five Oscars in 1976, including best picture and best actor for Jack Nicholson.
For the first time in more than 40 years, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” won the main awards for best picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. It was also a big box office success and received four further Oscar nominations.
The most recent film in which Fletcher had an appearance was “A Perfect Man,” a 2013 drama starring Liev Schreiber and Jeanne Tripplehorn.
On television, Fletcher had portrayed family matriarch Peggy “Grammy” Gallagher on Showtime’s “Shameless,” a crafty ex-con who nevertheless desired a relationship with her grandkids. The actress appeared in reruns of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” from 1993 to 1999 as the cunning, deceitful spiritual leader Winn Adami, “VR.5” from 1995 to 1997, and “ER” in 2005.
She received Emmy nominations for her guest appearances on “Picket Fences” in 1996 and “Joan of Arcadia” in 2004.
From 1959 through 1978, Fletcher was wed to Bick, a Hollywood literary agent who subsequently became a producer. 2004 saw his passing. Her sons John Dashiell Bick and Andrew Wilson Bick are the only ones left behind.