SHOCK TREATMENT

IN 1976, LOUISE FLETCHER SKIPPED UP TO the stage at the 48th Academy Awards to collect her Oscar for Best Actress. Tanned and smiling, with the cape sleeves of her chiffon dress floating behind her, she was every bit the antithesis of the iconic harridan she’d played in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest , Miloš Forman’s enthralling adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel about a psychiatric hospital. “Well, it looks like you all hated me so much that you’ve given me this award for it,” she said as she reached the lectern, to appreciative chuckles from an audience which included her co-star Jack Nicholson and the film’s producer, Michael Douglas, lounging with the confidence of a newly minted mogul. “I’m loving every minute of it,” continued Fletcher. “All I can say is, I’ve loved being hated by you.”

And hate her we did. As the infuriatingly calm antagonist of Nicholson’s irresistibly free-wheeling McMurphy, Nurse Ratched seemed to embody everything that was unfeeling and obstructive about authority, from the government and the medical establishment right down to one’s own overbearing mother. Such was the frenzied loathing inspired by this character, Fletcher later recalled audience members at a Chicago screening leaping to their feet to shout, “Kill her!” as McMurphy throttled Nurse Ratched in the film’s climactic scene. Fletcher’s Oscar was one among s haul of five — but she was the one who’d secured her place in cinema history. Not to mention secondTop 50 Greatest Villains list.