'Cuckoo's Nest' turns 50

By KVAL News Published: Feb 8, 2012 at 5:17 PM PDT Last Updated: Feb 8, 2012 at 5:53 PM PDT
'Cuckoo's Nest' turns 50
This April 7, 2000 file photo shows author Ken Kesey poses with his arm around the "Newt the Nut Catcher" hood ornament on his second bus called "Furthur" at his farm near Pleasant Hill, Ore. It was 50 years ago Feb. 8 that Ken Kesey’s wildly acclaimed novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” burst onto the published page. (AP Photo/Jack Smith)

EUGENE, Ore. - Ken Kesey grew up on a farm in Pleasant Hill, graduating from Springfield High School in 1953 and later the University of Oregon.

He was a champion wrestler in high school and college.

His breakthrough novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was published 50 years ago this February.

Although "Cuckoo's Nest" the movie with Jack Nicholson was filmed at the old Oregon state mental hospital, neither the movie nor Kesey's novel on which it was based makes any specific references to Oregon State Hospital.

Kesey drew on his experiences working at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., and set his satirical story at an unnamed institution in Oregon.

Local historians and literary figures want to see the late author's personal journals, films, drawings and other materials preserved in a collection at the UO Library.