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The Actress who played Nurse Ratched was a CODA

Louise Fletcher, best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in the 1975 classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, died on this date one year ago at the age of 88.

image from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


Fletcher won a Best Actress Academy Award for her work on the film. The second of four children, she grew up on Birmingham, Alabama. Her father, Robert Fletcher, served the deaf community as an Episcopal priest. He started dozens of churches for the deaf in Alabama. None of his children had any hearing loss, even though his wife was deaf as well. Louise Fletcher never forgot her roots. While filming One Flew Over, she took time to visit students at the Oregon School for the Deaf. Fletcher received an honorary degree from Gallaudet University in 1982. She died at her home in Montdurausse, France, on Friday, Sept. 23, 2022.

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