RATCH UP ANOTHER HIT
Bates, Lecter, Cheney… some individuals are so terrifying that mere mention of their name can chill the bones. Louise Fletcher, who has died aged 88, contributed “Ratched” to that pantheon. The child of deaf parents, Fletcher was a regular on TV Westerns in the late 50s before taking a long sabbatical to raise her children. Shortly after returning to the acting world, Miloš Forman chose Fletcher to play tyrannical mental institution boss Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest after bigger-name actresses rejected the part for being too evil. Her acclaimed performance won the rare triple threat of an Oscar (she memorably capped off her acceptance speech by thanking her parents in sign language), BAFTA, and Golden Globe. To this day Nurse Ratched remains one of the definitive movie villains and a symbol of bureaucratic power trips, and recently was the focus of a Netflix prequel series.
Fletcher never captured another part as defining as Nurse Ratched, but remained steadily employed in the following decades making both successes and clunkers (she particularly lamented doing the Exorcist sequel). Many of her better-remembered TV roles channeled nefarious undertones, including devious religious leader Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the domineering Carpenters matriarch in The Karen Carpenter Story, and an Emmy-nominated guest spot on Picket Fences as the chilly estranged mother of the deaf town mayor. She was picked by Awarded Oscarites, Worm Fodder, and Grim McGraw.
Louise Fletcher
22 July 1934 – 23 September 2022, aged 88
3 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 6 POINTS)