FRANCE (CelebrityAccess) – Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Mildred Ratched, died Friday (September 23) at her home in France, reported by a representative. She was 88. She was best known for her Oscar-winning performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as the villainous psych-ward nurse. She won her Oscar in 1976.
Fletcher was born in Birmingham, AL one of four hearing siblings, to the Rev. Robert Capers and Estelle, both deaf. “I grew up as a parent to my parents,” Fletcher said. Her first memory was of “crawling into my parents’ bed in the middle of the night to spell out on my father’s hand that I was ill.”
She studied drama at the University of North Carolina and then relocated to Los Angeles winning parts in Maverick, Lawman and The Untouchables. She married Jerry Bick and quit acting to raise her two songs in 1960.
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.
