A look into the strange life and legacy of the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo

1
Background Information on Ken Kesey

• A look into the strange life and legacy of the
  author of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

2
Keseys Early Life

• Ken Kesey was born in
• Colorado, but grew up in
• Oregon.
• This also happens
• to be where One Flew Over
• The Cuckoos Nest takes
• place.

The Oregon State Mental Hospital
3
Keseys College Years

• Ken went on to the
• University of Oregon where
• he became a star wrestler
• and lead actor in college
• plays.
• He married Faye, his
• high school sweetheart
• during his freshman year.

Voted Most Likely to Succeed as a Senior in High
School
4
After College

• Ken and Faye went to Hollywood to try to land a
  part in a movie.

However, Ken couldnt resist the urge to write
and enrolled in Stanford in 1958 on a
creative-writing fellowship.
5
The Move to Perry Lane

• Ken and Faye moved into
• a rundown house on Perry
• Lane, a cluster of two-room
• cottages inhabited by young,
• promising intellectuals.

6
Kesey and LSD

• Kens best friend on Perry Lane told him about
  some experiments the local VA hospital was
  conducting with hallucinogenic drugs.
• They paid Ken 75 a day to come in and lie down
  in a bed while they gave him a series of capsules
  of placebos, Ditran, and LSD.

The doctors had never taken LSD and couldnt
understand the effects and feelings. Ken managed
to provide all his friends on Perry Lane with LSD.
7
Keseys Job on the Psych Ward
Ken got a job covering the night shift at a
psychiatric ward in order to write his first
book, Zoo, which was never published.
Once he got there and started interacting with
patients, he discovered the punishing abuse of
power by the system.
8
Keseys inspiration for Cuckoos Nest

• Ken would come to work
• high on LSD in order to
• try to achieve a similar
• state of mind as his
• patients.
• It was during one of these
• acid trips that he envisioned
• his narrator, Chief Broom, a
• deaf-mute, paranoid
• schizophrenic Native American mental patient.

9
Immediate Success

• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was the first
  book that Ken published (in 1962). The book was
  immediately adapted into a successful stage
  production a year later, and then became and
  Academy Award winning film, sweeping five major
  Oscar categories in 1975.

10
Keseys opinion of film
Ken was originally involved in creating the film,
but left two weeks into production. He claimed
never to have seen the movie because of a dispute
over the 20,000 he was initially paid for the
film rights. Ken was apparently angered by the
fact that, unlike the book, the film was not
narrated by the Chief Bromden character, and he
disagreed with Jack Nicholson being cast as
Randle McMurphy (even though Nicholson went on to
win Best Actor)
Kesey wanted Gene Hackman to play McMurphy

• Jack Nicholson as
• Randle Patrick McMurphy

6 7 Will Sampson as Chief Bromden
11
The Move to La Honda, California

• After the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoos
  Nest, Ken and Faye moved to La Honda. His Perry
  Lane friends followed and their communal LSD
  culture continued.

They nicknamed themselves the Merry Pranksters.
12
Going Further
After completing his second novel, Kesey and his
Merry Pranksters bought an old school bus for
1500, painted it in Day-Glo colors and rigged it
up with speakers, microphones, and recording
equipment in order to rap off of the sounds along
the way.
They drove across country getting high and
recording home video footage for The Movie! and
wore masks and little to no clothing on the trip,
picking up hitchhikers and strangers to join in
the experience.
13
Legal Trouble

• Less than a year later, Ken and his 13 Merry
  Pranksters were arrested for marijuana
  possession. Ken was sentenced to six months in
  jail and three years of probation.

14
Acid Test Recruitment Poster

• While released on bond, Ken initiated his
  first Acid Test. It was a multimedia acid
  extravaganza with movie footage and asynchronous
  sounds being flashed in an enclosed area.

15
More Acid Tests
During this time, Ken became a celebrity among
the young American beatnik culture.

• Ken would
• recruit at
• Grateful Dead
• Concerts, and
• the Dead even
• came to the
• second test after one of their shows.

16
Acid Test Revelers
Ken Kesey
The Final Acid Test Participants
17
Avoiding Another Arrest

• In order to mislead the police and avoid jail
  time after two subsequent marijuana arrests, Ken
  faked his own suicide, leaving a note with his
  abandoned truck near an oceanside cliff.
• He escaped to Mexico, but when he returned to
  the United States eight months later, he was
  arrested and sent to prison for five months.

18
Keseys Later Life

• Shortly after being released from prison
  following the Mexico escape, Ken renounced his
  image as a drug hero. He said it was time to
  graduate to something else and moved to a farm in
  Oregon with Faye.
• They had 3 children.
• He died in 2001 at age 66 from liver cancer.

Faye Kesey by her husband and sons gravestones
19
Keseys iconic stature

• Ken and his Merry Pranksters became known as
  the link between the Beatnik generation of the
  50s and the hippies of the 60s. Although he
  published 11 books, One Flew Over the Cuckoos
  Nest was by far his most well-known and
  successful literary work.

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