Doctor who facilitated ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ dies

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The psychiatrist who opened the Oregon State Hospital’s doors to filming of the 1975 Academy Award-winning movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” has died.

Dr. Dean Brooks died May 30 at a retirement home in Salem at age 96, family members said. He had been in declining health for several weeks after a fall.

Brooks’ daughter, Dennie Brooks, said Friday the film’s producers were turned down by all the other mental hospitals they approached. But her father, who was the Salem hospital’s superintendent, saw the value of the movie in starting a national discussion about mental health and the responsibility of institutions to do no harm.

She said Dean Brooks also thought being part of a movie would be fun for him and for patients. He ended up playing a small role in the film — which was based on a 1962 Ken Kesey novel and starred Jack Nicholson — and making sure patients were involved, too.

Allowing the movie inside the hospital was a big career risk, but Dean Brooks regularly took risks on behalf of the patients, going so far as to take them on mountain-climbing expeditions and teaching them to rappel down cliffs, said Greg Roberts, the Oregon State Hospital’s current director.

At the urging of staff, he allowed patients to start wearing regular clothes rather than uniforms long before other state hospitals.