Louise Fletcher, the actress who tormented Jack Nicholson and other patients as Nurse Mildred Ratched, died on Friday at her home in France, a representative confirmed to Variety. She was 88. Fletcher is perhaps best known for her Academy Award–winning performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as the villainous psych-ward nurse. Born to a deaf mother and father, Fletcher addressed her parents in sign language when she accepted the Oscar for Best Actress for the role in 1976. “Thank you for teaching me to have a dream,” she signed at the awards ceremony. “You are seeing my dream come true.”
Fletcher made her screen debut in 1958 on the television show Playhouse 90. After about five years, she decided to take a step away from her burgeoning acting career to raise a family. According to Variety, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest director Miloš Forman saw her in Thieves Like Us, the 1974 movie that marked her return to acting. “She was all wrong for the [Ratched] role, but there was something about her,” Forman reportedly recalled in his memoir. “I asked her to read with me and suddenly, beneath the velvety exterior, I discovered a toughness and willpower that seemed tailored for the role.”
Fletcher’s last movie role was in 2013’s A Perfect Man, which she starred in alongside Liev Schreiber and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Throughout her career, she also appeared in several TV shows, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where she recurred as Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami. She received Emmy Award nominations for guest roles on Picket Fences and Joan of Arcadia. More recently, she starred as Peggy “Grammy” Gallagher on Showtime’s Shameless. Fletcher is survived by her two sons, John Dashiell Bick and Andrew Wilson Bick.
