Louise Fletcher, Oscar winner for 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' dies at 88 - KABC-TV

Louise Fletcher, who won an Academy Award for her role as Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," has died at the age of 88.

LOS ANGELES -- Louise Fletcher, a late-blooming star whose riveting performance as the cruel and calculating Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" set a new standard for screen villains and won her an Academy Award, has died at age 88.

After putting her career on hold for years to raise her children, Fletcher was in her early 40s and little known when chosen for the role opposite Jack Nicholson in the 1975 film by director Milos Forman, who had admired her work the year before in director Robert Altman's "Thieves Like Us." At the time, she didn't know that many other prominent stars, including Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Angela Lansbury, had turned it down.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" went on to become the first film since 1934s "It Happened One Night" to win best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and best screenplay.

Fletcher signed on for "Exorcist II: The Heretic," a misconceived sequel to the landmark original.

Far more than her male peers, Fletcher was hampered by her age in finding major roles in Hollywood.

Estelle Louise Fletcher was born the second of four children on July 22, 1934, in Birmingham?

The Fletcher children were helped by their aunt, with whom they lived in Bryant, Texas, for a year

It was those latter studies that convinced Fletcher she wanted to act

That and other films, Fletcher said, taught her "your dream could become real life if you wanted it bad enough."