Louise Fletcher
Fletcher at the National Film Society convention in May 1979.
Born	(1934-07-22) July 22, 1934 (age 77) Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1958–1963; 1974–present

Louise Fletcher (born July 22, 1934) is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes. She also received Emmy nominations for her guest starring roles in Picket Fences and Joan of Arcadia.

Early life[link]

Fletcher, the second of four children, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Estelle Caldwell and the Reverend Robert Capers Fletcher, who was an Episcopal priest from Arab, Alabama. Both of her parents were deaf and worked with the deaf and hard-of-hearing.^[1] Fletcher's father founded more than 40 churches for the deaf in Alabama.^[2] Fletcher and her siblings, Roberta, John and Georgianna,^[2] were all born without any hearing loss;^[3] she was taught to speak by a hearing aunt, who also introduced her to acting. After attending the University of North Carolina, she traveled to Los Angeles, California, where she found work as a secretary by day and took acting lessons by night.

Career[link]

Fletcher began appearing in several television productions, including Lawman and the highest-rated episode of Maverick. In 1974, she returned to film in Thieves Like Us co-produced by her husband and Robert Altman, who also directed. When the two had a falling out on Altman's next project, (Nashville (1975)), Altman decided to cast Lily Tomlin for the role of Linnea Reese, initially created for and by Fletcher. Meanwhile, director Miloš Forman saw Fletcher in Thieves and cast her as McMurphy's nemesis Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. When Fletcher accepted her Oscar, she used sign language to thank her parents,^[4] having spent two hours on the phone with her sister the previous night brushing up on her signing skills.^[2]

After Cuckoo's Nest, Fletcher had mixed luck with movies. She made multiple good movies and a few that failed at the box office before trying (and succeeding) with TV roles. She also appeared in such films as Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Cheap Detective (1978), The Lady in Red (1979), The Magician of Lublin (1979), Brainstorm (1983), Firestarter (1984), Invaders From Mars (1986), Flowers in the Attic (1987), Two Moon Junction (1988), Best of the Best (1989), Blue Steel (1990), Virtuosity (1995), High School High (1996), and Cruel Intentions (1999, as Sebastian's aunt). Additionally, she played the character Ruth Shorter, a supporting role, in the 2005 film Aurora Borealis alongside Joshua Jackson and Donald Sutherland, and appeared in the Fox Faith film The Last Sin Eater (2007).

Fletcher co-starred in such made-for-tv movies as The Karen Carpenter Story (1989) (as Karen and Richard Carpenter's mother Agnes), Nightmare on the 13th Floor (1990), The Haunting of Seacliff Inn (1994), and The Stepford Husbands (1996). She had a recurring role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–99) as the scheming Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami. She also earned Emmy Award nominations for her guest roles on the television series Picket Fences (1996) and Joan of Arcadia (2004). In 2009, Fletcher appeared in the NBC series Heroes as the physician mother of character Emma Coolidge. In 2011, she appeared as 'Grammy' Gallagher, Frank Gallagher's foul-mouthed and hard-living mother serving a prison sentence for manslaughter related to a meth lab explosion, in the Showtime series Shameless.

Personal life[link]

Fletcher married literary agent and producer Jerry Bick in 1960, divorcing in 1977.^[4] The couple had two sons, John Dashiell Bick and Andrew Wilson Bick.^[5] Fletcher took an 11-year hiatus from acting to raise her sons.^[4]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Louise Fletcher at the Internet Movie Database
• Louise Fletcher at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)