It seemed to take only a heartbeat for Linda Blair to go from being a young girl possessed by the devil in The Exorcist to being in front of a judge charged with possession. Blair’s career went into a nosedive after this run-in with the law, but no one seems to agree why. Let’s take a look at the facts and see how this Oscar-nominated actor ended up a D-list celebrity.
1. It Was An Ordinary Start
Linda Blair was born on January 22, 1959, in Missouri, but a job change for her father sent her and her family to New York. One thing that happened when she was in New York—that probably wouldn’t have happened in Missouri—was that at the age of five, Blair got her first job. A job at the age of five? Wouldn’t that be against the law? Not if you are a child model.
Larry Marano, Getty Images
2. She Worked Young
Blair was soon getting work appearing in the catalogs of Macy’s, Sears, and JCPenny. By the age of six, she had her first contract: print ads in the New York Times. Besides being a model. Blair also rode horses. Life must have seemed pretty peachy for this young girl. She was making money as a model, and she had a wholesome hobby. No one could have predicted the darkness that was coming Blair’s way.
Central Press, Getty Images
3. She Got A Call
Linda Blair’s first foray into acting was on a soap opera called Hidden Faces. If you haven’t heard of Hidden Faces it’s because it only lasted about a year. Up next for Blair came an R-rated film, The Way We Live Now. Of course, Blair wasn’t in the scenes that earned the movie its R rating, but this certainly wouldn’t be her last film that was for adults only.
Blair had nothing else on her resume when she got the call for the audition of a lifetime. William Friedkin, who’d just directed The French Connection, was looking for a young female actor, and the film—The Exorcist—was going to be a wild ride.
GuillemMedina, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
4. Her Agent Overlooked Her
Despite eventually landing the iconic role, Blair almost didn’t get the chance to audition for Friedkin. Her agent kept sending other teenage girls in and forgot all about Blair. Eventually, Blair’s mom took the matter into her own hands. She grabbed her daughter and marched her in for an audition even though she wasn't on the list. Once she was in front of the people casting the film, they only wanted to hear one thing from 12-year-old Blair: They wanted to hear the “worst language you could ever imagine”.
After she finished her foul-mouthed audition, her mother asked her how it went. The 12-year-old Blair just said, “Fine”.
Mirrorpix, Getty Images
5. There Were Others
William Friedkin was extremely particular when it came to casting the role of Regan in The Exorcist. Reportedly up to 600 young women auditioned for the part in Friedkin’s film. One of them was Anissa Jones from TV’s Family Affair. Apparently, she was too wholesome from the popular TV show to play Regan. Jones later lost her life to her drug use.
In the end, of the 600 girls, it was Blair whose foul mouth stood out. She got the job.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
6. She Had To Sit Still
Blair really had her work cut out for her. She was barely a teenager and she was going to have to act as if she was possessed by the devil. To make the effect as real as possible, Blair had to go through hours and hours of makeup. To keep her still—and not totally bored—the makeup artist, Dick Smith, let her watch reruns of TV shows like The Flying Nun. Smith later said that he really began to hate that show.
Blair may have been watching wholesome TV, but she was also busy memorizing some pretty vile dialogue.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
7. She Was Foul
For her first day on the set, Blair had to memorize her dialogue—and it was so foul, it disturbed one of her co-stars. The scene was with the very experienced actor Max von Sydow. When von Sydow heard the barely-teenage girl saying such horrible things, he was so startled that he actually forgot his own lines. When the makeup artist asked Blair how she felt about swearing on camera, Blair eerily responded that it wasn’t her that was swearing—it was Regan.
It sounds like Blair was into method acting. In some scenes, however, there was no acting required.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
8. The Screams Were Real
Blair had very limited experience as an actor, but in some ways, she didn’t really need experience. You see, in one scene Blair was supposed to scream while her body bounced around the bed. But this wasn't acting: The device that created the bouncing effect was so violent and scary that Blair’s screams were very much real. In the end, Blair had a permanent spine injury from filming that scene.
The very real horrors of filming The Exorcist didn’t stop there.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
9. She Brought It Back Up
Blair was, in some ways, a typical teenager. It turned out she didn’t like vegetables. The props people obviously didn’t know this when they came up with the idea of using pea soup in Blair’s mouth to look like vomit. In the end, some of the vomit that came out of Blair’s mouth contained some of the real thing. Blair did survive the filming of The Exorcist.
The danger to her, however, was not over yet.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
10. She Needed Protection
Once The Exorcist was out in theaters, the crazies came out in droves to protest it. Some people thought that the film “glorified Satan”. These people were angry, and they took out their rage on young Linda Blair. When they went so far as to threaten her life, Warner Brothers had to do something to protect their young star. For six months after the release of the film, Blair had full-time bodyguards.
Blair must have felt like the most hated child in America. That all changed when awards season started.
Avalon, Getty Images
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11. It Wasn’t Her
When Oscar time came around, Blair received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. There was, however, some controversy around it. Once they’d announced the nomination, some shocking news came out. It turned out that Blair had not done the entire job on The Exorcist. In fact, the voice of the demon was not hers at all.
The actor who provided the demon’s voice was Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, and she suddenly wanted credit for her work.
Moviepix, Getty Images
12. She Wanted People To Know
The truth was that McCambridge—who has never even met Blair—had originally declined credit for being the voice of the demon. Director Friedkin told NPR radio that McCambridge didn’t want to spoil the illusion that the voice was coming from young Linda Blair. Once McCambridge saw how successful the movie was going to be—and that Blair was up for an Oscar—she wanted her credit.
The question was: What would this do to Blair’s chances of winning the prize?
Bettmann, Getty Images
13. She Had No Chance
Blair's chances at an Oscar were pretty low, and then more bad news surfaced. Not only had Blair not done the voice of the demon, it turned out that she hadn’t done all the on-screen vomiting either. The contraption that spewed the pretend vomit was very complicated, so they used a double for those scenes. People were starting to question how much of the demon Blair actually was.
Warner Bros., The Exorcist (1973)
14. They Wanted To Take It Away
A big part of acting is how an actor uses their voice. When it came out that Blair hadn’t been the terrifying demon’s voice, the Academy wasn’t so keen on handing over her an award. They couldn't, however, take away Blair’s nomination. So, Blair attended the award show with almost 100% certainty she wasn’t going to win. Strangely, the award went to someone even younger than her: Tatum O’Neal for Paper Moon.
Moviepix, Getty Images
15. They Talked About Her
After filming The Exorcist, some members of the media started rumors about Blair’s mental health. They couldn’t believe that a young girl could make a movie like that without some serious psychological scars. Warner Bros didn’t want the public to think that they had damaged a child actor, so they sent her on a world press tour. The idea was to show that Blair was “a normal teenager”.
If she wanted to appear like a normal teenager, she definitely chose the wrong follow-up film to The Exorcist...
Central Press, Getty Images
16. It Wasn’t Family Viewing
Even though Born Innocent was a TV movie, it certainly wasn’t appropriate for family viewing. In the film, Blair plays Chris Parker, who ends up in a juvenile detention center. What made viewers angry was a scene where some of her fellow inmates attack Paker in the shower. What the girls do to Parker with a plunger made a lot of viewers angry.
17. They Copied It
The National Organization for Women didn’t like the scene in the shower at all. Neither did some LGBT groups who thought that the film had a negative portrayal of lesbians. Just when things were looking bad for Blair and the film, it got worse. Some young women in San Francisco copied the violent scene with a girl who was just nine years old. The young perpetrators of the incident said that they were doing it “like it was done in the picture”.
18. They Asked Her About It
Someone did eventually ask Blair what she thought about all the controversy around the shower scene in Born Innocent. Blair did her best to come up with one positive thing. She said that she thought that maybe other victims of what her character went through would be more willing to talk to authorities about their own harrowing ordeals. In the end, the courts did not hold the filmmakers responsible for any copycat incidents.
Blair had done two films and both had caused controversy. What was next, a rom-com? Nope.
Ron Galella Collection, Getty Images
19. They Saw Her As One Thing
Following The Exorcist and Born Innocent, Blair moved in with her older sister in Los Angeles to continue her career as an actor. There was a problem though. Directors and producers seemed to see her as one thing and one thing only: Someone who could portray “damaged goods”. First, she played a kidney transplant patient on a plane in Airport 1975, then she struggled with addiction in Sarah T—Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
Finally—in both Sweet Hostage and Victory at Entebbe—she got abducted. Were there no sweet coming-of-age films she could act in? Nothing seemed to be normal for Blair—even her own coming of age.
Brut Productions, Sweet Hostage (1975)
20. She Walked Right Up To Him
By this time, Blair was becoming a young woman, and it was happening fast. When she was just 15 years old, she was at a club and she became interested in the guy who was singing on stage. Between sets, Blair bravely walked up to the performer and the two got to talking. Blair wanted to buy him a drink, but she couldn’t—she was underage. Luckily her sister was with her and the three headed off to another club.
Archive Photos, Getty Images
21. She Went To His Place
With her sister’s blessing, Blair went to this musician’s apartment for the rest of the night. While he was a struggling musician at the time, he eventually became superstar musician and actor Rick Springfield. After their first night in his bed, Springfield called her an “enthusiastic learner”. Springfield dated Blair for a couple of years even though when they’d met, Springfield was 25 years old and Blair was 15.
Where were the adults in her life? Why was no one saying that this guy was too old for her?
Hulton Archive, Getty Images
22. She Loved Him
Not only did Blair’s mom not step in and ask Springfield to take his hands off her daughter, she welcomed him into their family. Mom even helped the two love birds keep their relationship out of the headlines—where fans might think an adult dating a teenager was unacceptable. Blair was clearly smitten with Springfield, and she wanted him with her everywhere.
Archive Photos, Getty Images
23. She Wanted Him Hired
While she was secretly carrying on with Springfield, Blair was still making movies. One was 1975’s Sweet Hostage, where she plays a teenager who is abducted by an on-the-lam mental patient. Blair said she only accepted the role in hopes that she could get her new boyfriend Springfield the role opposite her. Well, things didn’t quite work out as planned.
Brut Productions, Sweet Hostage (1975)
24. He Was Older
Blair seemed to have a habit of getting involved with films that push people’s buttons. In Sweet Hostage, the issue is that while Blair’s character is the victim of an abduction, she ends up becoming her abductor’s lover. To make matters even worse, Blair was just 16 when she made the film, and the man playing her abductor—Apocalypse Now actor Martin Sheen—was 35. Incidentally, Blair later said that she fell “madly in love” with Sheen, who managed to resist her charms.
Sheen was a rarity. It seemed that men were falling for Blair in droves.
Brut Productions, Sweet Hostage (1975)
25. She Cheated
By 1979, Blair was through with Springfield but continued her love affair with musicians. This time it was the very age-appropriate musician Neil Giraldo—who was just a few years older than her. While the two were dating, Giraldo went on tour with rock star Pat Benatar. Although she was attracted, Benatar knew that Giraldo was off limits because of Blair. Giraldo then confessed that he thought Blair was cheating on him. That's all Benatar needed to hear: She began pursuing Giraldo.
Blair then got the heartbreaking news: Giraldo and Benetar were getting married. Blair had to get over her broken heart quickly—she had a huge decision to make.
Gary Gershoff, Getty Images
26. She Didn't Want To Do It
Starring in The Exorcist had given Blair a career—for better or worse—playing teenagers in trouble. When an Exorcist sequel was in the works, Blair likely had to pause and think. Did she really want to go down that road again? Her initial answer was no, but this was mostly because she didn’t like the script. When they finally got a script together that she liked, Blair accepted the offer.
She'd regret this decision for the rest of her life.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
27. It Went Horribly
Exorcist II: The Heretic was not going to be some cheap sequel. They had Academy Award-nominated John Boorman in the director’s chair, and none other than acting legend Richard Burton as Blair’s co-star. So what went wrong? Blair later said that the script they’d presented to her underwent many rewrites and ended up being a total mess.
When Blair read the new—and badly written—version of the script it was too late: she’d already signed on for the picture. All she had to do now was cause as much trouble on set as possible.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
28. She Was Demanding
So, Blair had no choice but to go ahead with The Exorcist sequel. She could however, make some demands to make it as painless as possible for her. One demand was that she would not wear the same makeup as in The Exorcist. That meant whenever they had a flashback scene to the original story, the director had to use another actor instead of Blair.
Next on Blair’s hit list was her co-star Richard Burton.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
29. She Flat Out Refused
Blair had dated a 25-year-old Rick Springfield when she was a teenager. She’d also done intimate scenes with Martin Sheen when she was 16 and he was 35. In this film, however, Blair was looking at something she just couldn’t do: Richard Burton. The script called for Blair’s character—while possessed by the demon—to tempt Burton’s character and for him to act on his feelings. Blair read the script and told the director—in no uncertain terms—that this was not going to happen. She was 17 years old after all and he was a middle-aged, married man.
Blair was certainly dragging her heels, but she couldn’t say no to everything.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
30. She Had To Give In
There was one battle that Blair actually lost when filming Exorcist II: The Heretic. Director Boorman had an idea: He wanted Blair to learn how to tap dance. Blair knew her character Regan well, and she told Boorman that “Regan ain’t no tap dancer”. Somehow Boorman got his way, and you can see Blair tapping her heart out near the beginning of the film.
Not everything on the set was a struggle, though.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
31. He Was Older But No Wiser
Despite her refusal to get intimate with Burton, Blair said that she got along “beautifully” with the much older and more experienced actor. He apparently would sometimes quote Shakespeare to her. Blair also revealed that by the middle of the filming, Burton started showing up on set inebriated. This went on until the film was a wrap.
As it turned out, Blair should have been worrying less about Burton’s problems and more about her own.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
32. She Never Showed Up On Time
While making Exorcist II: The Heretic, Blair had an addiction of her own going on. Her drug habit caused her to be consistently late for work. It was so bad that she was proud when she appeared on set only 20 minutes late. You see, Blair was now hanging out with Deep Purple band member Glenn Hughes. The two had met just before the filming of Exorcist II: The Heretic. They hit it off for a dangerous reason: They enjoyed the same drug of choice. After a couple of years, even heavy snorter Hughes had to say goodbye to Blair—she liked the drug too much.
It turned out that Hughes got out just in time. There was trouble ahead for Blair and her addiction.
Fin Costello, Getty Images
33. She Got Off Easy
By 1977, Blair was in trouble with the law. Officers took her in for possession—not of a demon this time—and a conspiracy for drug sales. Soon, Blair stood nervously in front of a judge who had her fate in his hands. Blair decided to take the easy way out; she admitted her guilt and faced the punishment. She got three years probation for her sins and had to make a dozen appearances to warn kids away from using.
Some critics speculated that Blair’s career was over after her drug arrest. Was it possible that Hollywood would blacklist her? Only time would tell.
Bettmann, Getty Images
34. Suddenly, She Disappeared
Exorcist II: The Heretic got called a lot of things. One critic called it “the worst film ever made” and went on to say that everyone involved, except for Blair, should be ashamed of themselves. Blair somehow received a Saturn Award nomination for her performance but still, she took the failure of the film hard. She suddenly disappeared from the public eye, and where she eventually turned up was a huge surprise.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
35. She Hid Herself
If anyone was looking for Blair after the abysmal Exorcist sequel, they’d likely turn up empty-handed. Who they should’ve been looking for was Martha McDonald. Blair was competing as an equestrian rider and she was using McDonald as her pseudonym. It took her a full year to get over Exorcist II: The Heretic, but after her disappearance, she seemed determined to change her image.
Warner Bros., Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
36. She Got Away From Her Demons
After a quick made-for-TV horror film, Blair went off to Canada to make Wild Horse Hank. It looked like she finally started getting away from the horror and damaged goods parts people knew her for. Next up for her was a musical: Roller Boogie. It could not have been further from a demon possession story if it tried.
Film Consortium of Canada, Wild Horse Hank (1979)
37. It Didn’t Roll
At the end of the 1970s, roller disco was an American craze and United Artists wanted to capitalize on it. They put Blair opposite real-life roller skater Jim Bray and hoped for the best. What they got was the opposite. Critics panned Roller Boogie, and it even received a spot in the Golden Raspberry 100 Most Enjoyable Bad Movies Ever Made. Blair had tried to escape the horror genre and had met with failure.
This film was a sad step for Blair’s career. She was about to go where no actor wanted to end up: straight-to-video.
Moviepix, Getty Images
38. She Spiraled
Sadly, Roller Boogie sent Blair down a spiral of B movies, often horror or exploitation films. Hell Night saw her opposite another child star, Vince Van Patten. While it did eventually earn a cult following, Blair received her first nomination for a Razzy Award for Worst Actress. Blair saw where her career was going, so she decided to do something about it.
BLT Productions, Hell Night, (1981)
39. She Took It All Off
Blair wanted the world—and directors and casting agents—to see her in a different light. She wanted to move away from teen horror movies and get roles that were more adult. However, her idea to accomplish this was scandalous. Blair agreed to do a series of photos sans clothes. She appeared in the October 1982 issue of Oui—but her plan didn't work out the way she'd hoped.
Ron Galella, Getty Images
40. She Had A Crush
While posing for Oui didn’t help Blair’s career, it did help her love life. In the article that ran beside her provocative photo, Blair admitted that she had a crush: on “Super Freak” musician Rick James. When James read about her crush, he sprang into action. Before long the two were an item and doing more than just dating.
Leach Entertainment Features, Wikimedia Commons
41. They Had A Doomed Love
James wasn’t shy when talking about his adoration for Blair. He revealed that she had a “beautiful mind” and a “mind blowing body”. The two love birds even did a rather revealing photo shoot together. James was clearly smitten with Blair, but the relationship was doomed. So, what put the final nail in their coffin? Many years later, James revealed the heartbreaking reason.
Ron Galella, Getty Images
42. She Didn’t Give Him A Choice
In his book Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James, James revealed what happened between Blair and him. While they were dating, Blair accidentally got pregnant. Blair had no intention of keeping the baby, and James was not happy when he found out that she was going to give him absolutely no say in the matter. Blair ended the pregnancy, and all James could do was write a song about his now ex-girlfriend Blair. He called it “Cold-Blooded”.
“Cold Blooded” didn’t do much for Blair’s dating reputation. What she should really have been worrying about, however, was her reputation as an actor.
Ron Galella, Getty Images
43. She Won The Worst Awards
Blair was desperately trying to get away from her reputation for playing damaged goods. But ended up she replacing it with something much worse. She'd officially become the “worst actress” actress. The Golden Raspberry Awards—which had already nominated her once for the worst actress trophy—saw fit to nominate her a total of six more humiliating times. She took home the “dishonor” four times.
Instead of turning her life around, Blair teamed up with another denizen of the D list.
44. She Had Bedroom Eyes
In 1989, Blair made the straight-to-video Bedroom Eyes II. Here she met another prolific exploitation actor, Wings Hauser. The two started a relationship and then had the great idea to make a movie together. This was 1994’s Skins, about a separated couple who join forces to avenge the beating of their gay son by skinheads. Apparently, it’s as bad as it sounds.
Blair’s career was on a downward spiral, and she was likely blaming it all on The Exorcist.
Ron Galella, Getty Images
45. They Didn’t Want Her
In 1990, the author of The Exorcist decided to make another film based on one of his books. The book, Legion, actually had nothing to do with exorcisms or demons, but the producers wanted to play up the connection to the first two Exorcist films to drum up excitement. For this, they forced the author to give it the title The Exorcist III.
There was no part for Blair in The Exorcist III, but she was busy making an exorcism film of her own.
Featureflash Photo Agency, Shutterstock
46. She Got Her Revenge
Around the same time that The Exorcist III producers snubbed her, Blair received a script for an Exorcist spoof. Blair thought the script had potential, but she had one demand: She wanted spoof master Leslie Nielsen to play the priest. Nielsen got the call and accepted. Blair finally had a chance to get back at the film that had—for better or for worse–defined her career.
Repossessed may have been just a silly parody film, but it made waves in a way that no one expected.
Carolco Pictures, Repossessed (1990)
47. They Raced To Theaters
The thing is, the release dates for The Exorcist III and Repossessed were around the same time. 20th Century Fox worried that if Repossessed came out first, it would make audiences think The Exorcist III was something less than serious. For this reason, they rushed the film and they released it a month before Blair’s spoof.
After Repossessed, work for Blair in Hollywood quickly dried up. She now needed a new place to spread her B-movie wings.
Featureflash Photo Agency, Shutterstock
48. She Went Down
In the early 1990s, Blair went down under and appeared in several low-budget movies Australian with titles like Fatal Bond and Dead Sleep. She also had fun reteaming with Wes Craven, who gave her a cameo in the first of his Scream movies. Sadly, it seemed the only thing anyone wanted Blair for was horror. That’s when she set her sights on something miles from Hollywood horror. She looked to Broadway.
Featureflash Photo Agency, Shutterstock
49. She Walked Away
In 1996, Lucy Lawless—made uber-famous in TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess—was playing Rizzo on Broadway in the musical Grease. When Lawless decided to step off the stage, the producers offered the role to Blair. Blair accepted the offer and started performing it on October 19. But then it all fell apart. Meant to appear for three months, Blair unexpectedly quit after just six weeks for some mysterious reason.
Blair seemed on the verge of disappearing from show business altogether when an unexpected reboot saved her from obscurity.
GuillemMedina, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
50. She Found New Life
In the early 2000s, the studio that made The Exorcist re-released the terrifying film in theaters. Many moviegoers had not seen it before or had only watched it on DVD. The terror of watching The Exorcist in a dark theater brought Blair a whole new legion of fans. It even led her to getting her own show: the Fox Family TV docu-series called Scariest Places on Earth.
After six seasons of the Scariest Places on Earth, Blair decided to create one of the safest places on earth.
Fox Family Channel, Scariest Places on Earth (2000-2006)
51. She Went From Devil To Angel
Blair is now in the business of helping animals. She set up the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation where she rehabilitates lost or abandoned animals that live on the streets of Los Angeles. It all happens on her sanctuary farm in California where she both works with the animals and lives full time.
But don't worry, horror isn't completely out of her life: she still makes time for her fans at horror film conventions.
