Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest introduced the world to a cast of colorful
mental patients, as well as Nurse Ratched, the cruel administrator who kept them in line.
It also inspired an Oscar-winning movie. From the stars to the side characters, here's what
happened to the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Louise Fletcher won an Oscar for her portrayal of the villainous Nurse Ratched, and her performance
is so iconic that the character's been synonymous with sadistic authority figures ever since.
However, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was actually what kickstarted Louise Fletcher's
return to acting. She'd already found some success on TV in classics like Maverick, The
Untouchables, and the original Perry Mason. However, as she explained to the New York
Times, the imposing height that made her so powerful as Ratched actually held her back
in those years. She explained,
"No television producer thought a tall woman could be sexually attractive to anybody. I
was able to get jobs on Westerns because the actors were even taller than I was."
In 1964, she took a decade off from acting to focus on raising her kids. When she returned
in Thieves Like Us, that movie teamed her up with one of the era's great directors,
Robert Altman, and some of its biggest stars, like Shelley Duvall. And then, of course,
she made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the following year, which became her landmark
movie.
Some of her other roles include Mrs. McKeltch in the sci-fi chiller Invaders from Mars and
the Grandmother in the 1987 adaptation of trash classic Flowers in the Attic. More recently,
she's appeared as Rosie in Netflix's Girlboss. The streaming giant is also home to the series
Ratched, an origin story for the character Fletcher made famous, and a prequel of sorts
to Cuckoo's Nest, starring Sarah Paulson.
His role as anti-hero R.P. McMurphy won Jack Nicholson his first of three Oscars, but he'd
already been toiling in Hollywood for years by that point. After turning down an animation
job for Scooby-Doo studio Hanna-Barbera, young Jack Nicholson went to work for Roger Corman,
the era's king of low-budget filmmaking. In between acting jobs, he wrote The Trip for
actors Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, who'd score Nicholson his first big role in Easy
Rider. Soon, Nicholson became the face of a new generation of filmmakers and stars,
with roles in classics like Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, and of course, One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest.
Nicholson got his most iconic role six years later in The Shining as Jack Torrance, an
alcoholic driven to kill his family by the evil influence of the Overlook Hotel. Some
of his other films include A Few Good Men, The Departed, and Batman. He's racked up a
record 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other actor in history. He continued acting
until 2010's How Do You Know, which reunited him with James L. Brooks, the director who'd
led him to Oscars with Terms of Endearment and As Good as It Gets. Since then, Nicholson
has been retired, but he's left fans with no shortage of films to catch up on.
Ken Kesey's original novel was narrated not by McMurphy but by another patient — the
silent Chief. While the Native American inmate didn't have quite as big a role in the movie,
Will Sampson's performance still made his character memorable. Sampson came to film
from a career in rodeo that lasted 20 years. When One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's producers
saw him perform, they realized the 6'7" cowboy was perfect to play the monumental Chief.
Sampson continued acting for most of his life. Some of his biggest roles include a medicine
man in Poltergeist II, acting opposite Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales, a regular
TV gig in the detective show Vega$, and a starring role in the Canadian drama Fish Hawk.
But Hollywood has never been kind to Native Americans. But Sampson, at least, has done
his part to change that. In 1979, he helped found the American Indian Registry for the
Performing Arts, an organization that continues to help actors and other artists to this day.
But his first love was always painting, a career he continued until his death in 1987.
Billy Bibbit is a shy young man who's survived multiple suicide attempts but is tragically
undone by Ratched's psychological warfare. Cuckoo's Nest director Miloš Forman got actor
Brad Dourif the role after spotting him onstage in Woodstock, New York. This was the beginning
of Dourif's film career, and he went on to play the lead in John Huston's adaptation
of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. He also appeared in Dune, where he met David Lynch,
who would later cast him in Blue Velvet.
But his most iconic role was about as far from poor, innocent Billy as you could get.
In Child's Play, he appeared as serial killer Charles Lee Ray, who transferred his soul
into a doll to become Chucky. Dourif would continue to play Chucky in six more films
over the next 30 years, and he's on track to return to the role in a TV series in 2021.
He even got to call back to his earlier role as Billy in Cult of Chucky, which saw him
terrorize a mental hospital he describes as a "cuckoo's nest." While Chucky was a voice
role that mostly kept Dourif's face out of sight, viewers will still recognize him from
his role as Sauron's slimy toady, Grima Wormtongue , in the Lord of the Rings series.
Despite his nebbish appearance, Sydney Lassick has a rugged history, serving in the US Navy
during World War II. When he returned to civilian life, he began acting, appearing in various
minor roles in minor movies before his breakthrough as Charlie Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest.
After that, he was able to score bigger projects, most famously as a high school teacher in
Brian De Palma's classic adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel, Carrie. The horror genre
was good to him elsewhere in his career, as he'd score major roles in chillers like The
Unseen and Alligator. He also appeared on some TV classics, including Amazing Stories,
Hawaii Five-O, Night Court, and The X-Files. Later, he'd reteam with Cuckoo's Nest director
Miloš Forman for a cameo in Man on the Moon. Lassick was also one half of the old couple
who rapper Vanilla Ice stayed with in his legendarily embarrassing star vehicle Cool
as Ice, but we have to imagine Lassick would prefer we don't say too much about that.
Playing Max, one of the least compliant patients, was a breakout role for a young Christopher
Lloyd. Though he'd had a fairly successful stage career before One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest, this was his first film role, and it launched him into a screen career that continues
to this day. While he hasn't been as prolific as costars like Jack Nicholson, he's shown
a keen eye for iconic roles in nostalgic classics that have been seared into the brains of generations
of kids, from the '80s on up. The most notable of these roles, of course, was the eccentric
inventor Doc Brown in the Back to the Future series, a part he owns so completely that
it's hard to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest without expecting him to bust out his
catchphrase.
"Great Scott!"
But that doesn't mean he doesn't have range. At least as many viewers will recognize him
as a far less lovable character, the terrifying Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Some
of his other classic parts include Uncle Fester in The Addams Family movies, a Klingon commander
in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, an even stranger alien in the cult classic The
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and the zombified Rasputin in Anastasia.
But his longest-running role was Jim on Taxi, playing the self-proclaimed "living embodiment
of the '60s" for half a decade and winning an Emmy in the process
Looking incredibly young, Danny DeVito plays Martini, a relatively minor role by someone
who'd prove himself to be a major talent in the following decades. He reteamed with Jack
Nicholson for Terms of Endearment and followed up Nicholson's Batman role as the Joker by
playing the Penguin in Batman Returns. This began a long collaboration with Batman director
Tim Burton that includes films like Mars Attacks!, Big Fish, and Dumbo, and which always seems
to end up with DeVito back in the Penguin's trademark top hat.
Some of his other recognizable roles include his sleazy supporting turns in crime dramas
like Heist and L.A. Confidential and the adventure duology Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the
Nile. He's also had a successful voice-acting career, playing iconic animated characters
like the villain of Space Jam, the title role in The Lorax, and Phil the trainer in Disney's
Hercules. More recently, he's played Spencer's grandpa in Jumanji: The Next Level.
DeVito's also found success behind the camera. He's directed seven films, including Death
to Smoochy, The War of the Roses, and the family classic Matilda. But DeVito found perhaps
his most iconic role on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. After a guest appearance
in 2006 as Frank Reynolds, self-proclaimed "trashman" and the stepdad of main characters
Dennis and Dee, he joined the "gang" of regulars, where he's stayed the past 14 years.
"There's gonna be some changes around here, you understand?"
One of Chief and McMurphy's most prominent wardmates is Dale, a middle-aged man who does
what little he can to maintain some kind of order when Ratched isn't around. He's played
by William Redfield, a veteran stage actor who'd been acting since he was nine years
old. Entertainment was the family business for him. His father was a conductor, and his
mother was a chorus girl whose resumé included Broadway's legendary Ziegfield Follies. Redfield
had a successful stage career in his own right, acting in plays by everyone from Shakespeare
to Cole Porter. He even originated the role of Si Crowell Thornton Wilder's classic Our
Town.
He also appeared in a number of beloved movies, including the first of Charles Bronson's crook-killing
sprees in Death Wish and the sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage. His role in One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest could've catapulted him to even greater heights, but tragically, it
didn't work out that way. Redfield was diagnosed with leukemia during filming, and he passed
away two years later.
In one memorable scene, McMurphy bribes an orderly to let him throw a Christmas party.
Horror fans will immediately recognize the orderly as Scatman Crothers, who had a much
less amicable relationship with Jack Nicholson in The Shining, where Crothers played Dick,
the head chef at the Overlook Hotel.
But Crothers had a career that went far beyond either of these roles. Before he took up acting,
he spent 20 years as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist touring the jazz circuit. He
told the New York Times that he took his stage name when a radio director in Dayton, Ohio,
said he needed something snappier than Benjamin Sherman Crothers. So Crothers told the director
to call him Scatman, because he did a lot of scat singing at the time.
He made his screen debut in 1948 on LA TV's Dixie Showboat, as the first Black performer
broadcast in the city. Many years later, he had a recurring role on the classic sitcom
Sanford and Son, and he was also a regular on Chico and the Man. But you won't recognize
his face in some of his most recognizable roles. He starred as a kung fu-fighting canine
in the classic cartoon Hong Kong Phooey, and he played supporting parts in Transformers
as Jazz and in Disney's The Aristocats, where he returned to his jazz roots to lead the
musical set piece "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat."
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