Happy Birthday, Linda Blair!
Friday, January 22, 2016 at 8:26AM Happy Birthday to horror legend and Oscar nominee, Linda Blair! The actress and activist's signature role as Regan in The Exorcist is as iconic as it comes, but she never landed another role as significant. Later years saw her winking at and spoofing her legendary demonic turn, but we will always be terrified by her icy stare behind the makeup.
Blair's Best Supporting Actress nomination remains one of our youngest nominees (though she was defeated by the even younger Tatum O'Neal) and one of the few honored performances in a horror film. Her Oscar chances were sidelined due to perceptions of Mercedes McCambridge's vocal contributions to the possessed Regan, but put the film on mute and Blair still stuns. The performance is as terrifying as it ever was - primal, physical, and unflinching. (If you missed last year's Smackdown which really dived into her work, check out the Smackdown and its companion podcast.)
Here's to one of the rare Oscar-approved Scream Queens!
Reader Comments (4)
Happy birthday, Linda Blair, you faithless slime!
Thanks for this, Chris!
What an unusual career after such a stunning debut. Her second film saw her serenaded by the great Helen Reddy, then Linda made quite a splash with two heralded TV movies. And then of course came Exorcist II: The Heretic, a movie I found quite alluring as a teen. Her first stab at headlining a feature film. And she co-starred with Louise Fletcher, another actress who deserved a better career and also ironically made an eerily accurate stand-in for Ellen Burstyn. While I can't stay it's good, the film is a fascinating failure.
But the original has stood the test of time. Not only is The Exorcist the greatest horror film, it's one of the greatest films period. Friedkin took visceral filmmaking to its zenith, and his astonishing work has influenced so many others through the generations. The Exorcist is not just a horror film: it's a complex, beautiful metaphysical allegory that continues to reveal new depths of meaning with each viewing.
Happy Birthday, Linda!
Happy Birthday Linda, I'm one of those older people who went with high school friends to see "The Exorcist" in the cinema. We loved it.
She and Tatum O'Neal didn't quite make the transition to adult actor, but it's a fine performance and it has stood the test of time.
I love The Exorcist and I love Linda Blair in it. Yes, Mercedes McCambridge's outstanding voice talents should have been more widely recognized at the time, but Blair's performance is still astonishing without that vocal work.
The less said about <I>The Exorcist II: The Heretic the better ;)