American actress Louise Fletcher passed away on Friday, September 23, 2022, in France. She was 88.
Louise Fletcher was born on July 22, 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama, United States to Estelle Caldwell and the Reverend Robert Capers Fletcher, an Episcopalian missionary from Arab, Alabama. Both of her parents were deaf and worked with the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
She had three siblings; Georgianna Fletcher, John Fletcher and Roberta Fletcher.
Louise Fletcher was introduced to performing at a young age by her aunt who taught her to speak.
Following graduation from the University of North Carolina, she took a trip out west with her roommates, finding herself in Los Angeles without enough money to return home. She took a temporary job as a receptionist and signed up for acting classes at night.
The young actress made her screen debut in 1958 with appearances on “Playhouse 90,” among other television shows.
She then worked regularly in television and film, but after marrying producer Jerry Bick and having two sons, the actress took a long hiatus to raise her children.
Returning to work in 1974 in Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us (1974), Fletcher came to the attention of director Milos Forman, who was casting the difficult role of the nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). She won the role — and then the Academy Award — portraying deadly, inflexible Nurse Ratched, who has since become a cultural icon.
Louise Fletcher subsequently starred in over 50 films including The Cheap Detective (1978), Richard Burton in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Firestarter (1984), Brainstorm (1983), Flowers in the Attic (1987), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more.
Louise Fletcher was married to Jerry Bick, a Hollywood literary agent who was also later a producer, from 1959 to 1978. He died in 2004.
She is survived by her sons John Dashiell Bick and Andrew Wilson Bick.
Louise Fletcher’s funeral arrangements are yet to be announced by the family.