Known for: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Net worth: $1 million
Now, here’s an actor who played a character we all love to hate—quite possibly the very one we love to hate the most. In 1976, the late Louise Fletcher introduced to the world of cinema the most wretched of all iconic screen villains, the evil Nurse Ratched. Lording over the psychiatric ward that held Jack Nicholson’s Randle McMurphy and his band of fellow patients, Nurse Ratched’s epic clashes with the incorrigible patient are indelible.
Louise Fletcher won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and also the BAFTA and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress. Her rendition of the heartless Nurse Ratched made her one of three actresses ever to win all three awards. An astounding performance, indeed. It was Fletcher’s performance in Thieves Like Us (1974) that caught the attention of Milos Forman, director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In late September 2022, she sadly passed away.
Janet Suzman
Known for: Nicholas and Alexandra
Net worth: $2 million
South African-born British actress Janet Suzman went to school in Johannesburg and moved to London to train in theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1963 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where she became a celebrated actress.
Suzman starred in many British-telly drama productions like Saint Joan , The Three Sisters, Macbeth , Hedda Gabbler and Twelfth Night. In her debut film role as Empress Alexandra in Nicholas and Alexandra , Suzman received showers of praise plus a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Not bad. In her later years, she has taken on directing. Her first project, a televised production of Othello was filmed in South Africa at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.
Catherine Deneuve
Known for: Belle de Jour and Repulsion
Net worth: $75 million
Parisian-born, French and American actor Catherine Deneuve was so revered for her beauty in the 1980s, she became the representation of Marianne, France’s national symbol. Her elegant style has also been incorporated by luxury brands like Chanel No. 5 and Yves Saint Laurent, for whom she modeled.
Famously, especially in France, Deneuve starred in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In America, she won fame with her performance in Indochine. Her role as a murderous schizophrenic in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion is perhaps her best remembered, but her greatest performance remains in Belle de Jour by Luis Buñuel, where she plays a housewife who’s an afternoon prostitute. She worked primarily in French and European cinema, but In America, she co-starred with Jack Lemmon in The April Fools and with Burt Reynolds in Hustle. In the 1980s she co-starred with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon playing an award-winning rendition of a bisexual vampire.
Kim Basinger
Known for: The Natural and Batman
Net worth: $40 million
Growing up as an extremely shy girl from Athens, Georgia, Kim Basinger managed to take on beauty contests and win the Junior Miss Georgia title. By the time she was 20, she was a top model appearing on the cover of every fashion magazine. But Basinger wanted more than a modeling career, so the Cover Girl moved to Hollywood.
Breaking into TV, she landed parts on the groovy Charlie’s Angels series. She broke into the film industry with a role as a Bond girl. But it was Tim Burton’s box-office hit Batman that propelled her toward the stardom she sought. Notably, her role as a femme fatale in L.A. Confidential is universally hailed as brilliant. Basinger is a vegetarian and an animal rights activist. She posed for PETA, sans fur, supporting their anti-fur campaign.
Peter Ostrum
Known for: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Net worth: $1 million
Child actor, Peter Ostrum, took a very different path than some of his American counterparts. As a boy in the 1970s, he won the role of Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory after being selected by talent scouts while performing with children’s theatre in Cleveland, Ohio. He was 12. The movie studio offered Ostrum a three-film movie contract once filming concluded. Ostrum turned it down. He credits the decision to having spared him the tough transition from child actor to adulthood.
Making the movie on the Munich set in West Germany set was a good experience. During the filming, he developed a close relationship with Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka). Ostrum considered going back to Hollywood for a showbiz career, but he never made the move. With the massive proceeds, he acquired a horse. It became his love and passion, ultimately leading to a career in veterinary medicine. Royalties are yet trickling in from the 1971 film.