Her agent David Shaul confirmed, the actor died in her sleep surrounded by family at her home in France. But No cause of death was given.
Fletcher had battled breast cancer twice by the time she was 80.
She was born in Birmingham on July 22, 1934. She was the second of four children of deaf parents, Robert and Estelle.
She booked bit parts in several TV shows in the late 1950s and 1960s, including “Lawman,” “Maverick,” “The Untouchables,” “Wagon Train” and “Perry Mason”.
But her career was also hampered by her height. At 5 feet 11, she often towered over her male counterparts.
Fletcher married producer Jerry Bick in the early 1960s and gave birth to two sons in quick succession and didn’t work for 11 years.
In 1975, in her 40's, she gave an Oscar-winning performance as the villainous Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
The role of Nurse Ratched earned her an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. The film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” won the Oscar for best picture.
The Oscars curse - appeared to strike Fletcher in her professional career and personal life as she and Bick divorced in 1977 and she lost two siblings.
She made occasional films such as “The Cheap Detective” and “Brainstorm,” actress Natalie Wood’s final movie. The latter was delayed by Wood’s drowning death in 1981
She appeared in 1987’s “Flowers in the Attic,” “Strange Invaders,” Predator” and “Once Upon a Time in America,”
She also took on TV roles in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”. She also appeared in “7th Heaven,” “ER,” “Private Practice,” “Heroes” and “Shameless”.