Linda Blair

Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959) is an American actress. She is known for films such as The Exorcist, the sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic and Roller Boogie.
==Early life==
Blair was born January 22, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri, to James Frederick and Elinore (née Leitch) Blair. She has an older sister, Debbie, and an older brother, Jim. When Blair was two years old, her father, a Navy test pilot-turned-executive recruiter, took a job in New York City, and the family relocated to Westport, Connecticut. Her mother worked as a real-estate agent in Westport. Linda worked as a child model at age five, appearing in Sears, J.C. Penney, and Macy's catalogues, and in over 70 commercials for Welch's grape jams and various other companies. Blair secured a contract at age six for a series of print ads in The New York Times. At the same age she began riding horses, later becoming a trained equestrian.
==Career==
===1968–1978: Early work and The Exorcist franchise===
Blair started acting with a regular role on the short-lived Hidden Faces (1968–69) daytime soap opera. Her first theatrical film appearance was in The Way We Live Now (1970), followed by a bit part in the comedy The Sporting Club (1971). In 1972, Blair was selected from a field of 600 applicants for her most notable role as Regan, the possessed daughter of a famous actress, in William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973). The role earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Film critic and historian Mark Clark notes that in her performance, "Blair matches [adult co-star] Ellen Burstyn note-for-note." Despite the film's critical successes, Blair received media scrutiny for her role in the film, which was deemed by some as "blasphemous", and Blair has said the film had significant impact on her life and career. After the film's premiere in December 1973, some reporters speculated about Blair's mental state, suggesting the filming process had resulted in her having a mental breakdown, which Blair denied, and she later received anonymous death threats. To combat the rumors and media speculation surrounding her, Warner Bros. sent the then-14-year-old Blair on an international press tour in hopes of demonstrating that she was "just a normal teenager". 
Blair starred opposite Kim Hunter in the wildly controversial television film Born Innocent (1974), in which she plays a runaway teenager who is sexually abused. The film was criticized by the National Organization for Women, the New York Rape Coalition, and numerous gay and lesbian rights organizations for its depiction of female-on-female sexual abuse; the Lesbian Feminist Liberation dismissed the film, stating: "Men rape, women don't," and regarded the film as "propaganda against lesbians." After filming Born Innocent, Blair also had a supporting part as a teenaged kidney-transplant patient in the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974), which was critically panned, but a success at the box office. A steady series of job offers led Blair to relocate to Los Angeles]in 1975, where she lived with her older sister, Debbie. Between 1975 and 1978, she had lead roles in numerous television films: Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975), as a teenager who becomes addicted to alcohol; Sweet Hostage (1975) opposite Martin Sheen, in which she plays a kidnapping victim; and Victory at Entebbe (1976), a dramatization of a real-life hostage situation starring Anthony Hopkins and Elizabeth Taylor.
In 1977, Blair reprised her role as Regan in the Exorcist sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), garnering a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress of 1978. The film was a critical and commercial failure, however, and at the time was the most expensive film ever made by Warner Bros. Studios. After filming Exorcist II: The Heretic, Blair took a year off from acting and competed in national equestrian circuits under the pseudonym Martha McDonald. In 1978, she made a return to acting in the Wes Craven-directed television horror film Stranger in Our House (retitled Summer of Fear), based on the novel by Lois Duncan, and also with the lead role in the Canadian production Wild Horse Hank, in which she used her equestrian skills to play a college student saving wild horses from ranchers.
===1979–1999: Independent films and other ventures===
Blair's career took a new turn in 1979 with her starring role in the musical drama Roller Boogie, which established her as a sex symbol. The following year, she co-starred with Dirk Benedict in Ruckus, playing a young woman who helps a maligned Vietnam veteran evade antagonistic locals in a small town. She also starred in a number of financially successful low-budget horror and exploitation films throughout much of the 1980s. She starred opposite Peter Barton and Vincent Van Patten in the slasher film Hell Night (1981), followed by roles in the women-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983), playing a teenager in a women's prison, and the exploitation thriller Savage Streets (1984), in which she plays the lead of a female vigilante street gang who targets male rapists. In a review of Savage Streets published by TV Guide, her performance was deemed "her best since The Exorcist (1973)... and that's not saying much." Also in 1983, Blair posed nude in an issue of Playboy. In 1985, Blair starred again in another women-in-prison feature titled Red Heat, playing a prisoner of war in West Germany. This was followed by a lead in the direct-to-video film Night Force (1985), in which Blair portrayed a woman who travels to Mexico to save her friend from terrorists.
The era of Blair's career between 1980 and 1985 was marked by some critical backlash, with Blair earning a total of five Razzie Award nominations and being awarded two Razzies for Worst Actress. In the late 1980s, she worked in numerous low-budget horror films, including Grotesque (1988), opposite Tab Hunter, and the Italian production Witchery (1988), opposite David Hasselhoff. The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy Up Your Alley opposite Murray Langston, and the Exorcist spoof Repossessed in 1990, co-starring Leslie Nielsen. She also appeared in several Australian B-movies in the early 1990s, including Fatal Bond (1991) and Dead Sleep (1992). In 1997, Blair reunited with director Wes Craven for a cameo role as a reporter in Scream (1996), and also starred in a Broadway revival of Grease, playing Rizzo. Also in 1997, she appeared in a documentary for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom entitled Didn't You Used to be Satan?, which served as a biography of her life to that point and how the film The Exorcist had dominated her career and life.
Blair appeared in critic Mark Kermode's 1998 BBC documentary The Fear of God (which Kermode directed and hosted), included as a special feature on the DVD of The Exorcist. In 1999, Blair appeared in an online parody of The Blair Witch Project titled The Blair Bitch Project.
===2000–present: Retrospective and activism===
In 2000, she was cast as a regular in the BBC television show, L.A. 7, and between 2001 and 2003, hosted Fox Family's Scariest Places on Earth, a reality series profiling reportedly haunted locations throughout the world. Blair devotes time to a nonprofit organization she established in 2004, the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which works to rescue and rehabilitate abused, neglected, and mistreated animals and provide them with needed pet care. As an adult, she became an animal rights activist and humanitarian, working with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Feed the Children, Variety, the Children's Charity, and other organizations, as well as advocating for teen HIV/AIDS awareness. Blair is on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society operation’s board of advisors. In August 2005, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Blair travelled to Mississippi and saved 51 abandoned dogs.
In 2006, she guest-starred on The CW television series Supernatural playing the part of Detective Diana Ballard, as she aids Sam and Dean Winchester in the episode "The Usual Suspects", which aired November 9, 2006. In 2008, she appeared at the 18th annual Malaga Fantasy and Horror Film Festival to accept a lifetime achievement award for her work in the horror genre. Blair appeared the following year in the documentary Confessions of a Teenage Vigilante, discussing her role as Brenda in Savage Streets (1984). The documentary was included as a bonus feature on the 2009 DVD release of the film. 
In 2010, she appeared as herself on the cable series Pit Boss and Jury Duty. She appeared in the 2011 Rick Springfield documentary Affair of the Heart, and was a panelist in a 2011 episode of The Joy Behar Show. In late 2011, Blair appeared at the taped Governors Awards for the 84th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring makeup artist Dick Smith, who had created the iconic makeup for Blair in The Exorcist. In 2013, Blair accepted a role in the comedy web series Whoa!, and has since appeared in the 2016 feature The Green Fairy, and the films Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel (2016) and the upcoming Landfill (post-production).
==Filmography==
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1970	The Way We Live Now 	Sara Aldridge 	
1971	The Sporting Club 	Barby 	
1973	The Exorcist 	Regan MacNeil 	
1974	Airport 1975 	Janice Abbott 	
1974	Born Innocent 	Chris Parker 	Television film
1975	Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic 	Sarah Travis 	Television film
1975	Sweet Hostage 	Doris Mae Withers 	Television film
1976	Victory at Entebbe 	Chana Vilnofsky 	Television film
1977	Exorcist II: The Heretic 	Regan MacNeil 	
1978	Stranger in Our House 	Rachel Bryant 	Television film; also known as: Summer of Fear
1979	Wild Horse Hank 	Hank Bradford 	
1979	Roller Boogie 	Terry Barkley 	
1980	Ruckus 	Jenny Bellows 	
1981	Hell Night 	Marti Gaines 	
1983	Chained Heat 	Carol Henderson 	
1984	Night Patrol 	Officer Sue Perman 	
1984	Savage Streets 	Brenda 	
1984	Terror in the Aisles 	Regan MacNeil 	Archive footage
1985	Red Heat 	Christine Carlson 	
1985	Savage Island 	Daly 	
1987	SFX Retaliator 	Doris 	Also known as: The Heroin Deal
1987	Nightforce 	Carla 	
1988	Moving Target 	Sally Tyler 	
1988	Grotesque 	Lisa 	
1988	Silent Assassins 	Sara 	
1988	Witchery 	Jane Brooks 	
1989	Up Your Alley 	Vickie Adderly 	
1989	The Chilling 	Mary Hampton 	Also known as: Gamma 693
1989	Aunt Millie's Will 	Unknown 	Short film
1989	W.B., Blue and the Bean 	Annette Ridgeway 	Also known as: Bailout
1989	Linda Blair’s How To Get Revenge 	Herself 	Direct to VHS film
1990	Zapped Again! 	Miss Mitchell 	
1990	Repossessed 	Nancy Aglet 	
1990	Dead Sleep 	Maggie Healey 	
1991	Bedroom Eyes II 	Sophie Stevens 	
1991	Fatal Bond 	Leonie Stevens 	
1992	Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer?: The Bambi Bembenek Story	Jane Mder 	Television film
1992	Perry Mason: The Case of the Heartbroken Bride 	Hannah Hawkes 	Television film
1993	Bad Blood 	Evie Barners 	Television film
1993	Phone 	Unknown 	Short film
1994	Skins 	Maggie Joiner 	
1994	Double Blast 	Claudia 	Television film
1995	Sorceress 	Amelia Reynolds 	
1996	Prey of the Jaguar 	Cody Johnson 	
1996	Scream 	Obnoxious Reporter 	Uncredited
1997	Marina 	Marina 	Short film
2003	Monster Makers 	Shelly Stoker 	Television film
2005	Diva Dog: Pit Bull on Wheels 	Unknown 	Short film
2005	Hitters Anonymous 	Brenda 	
2006	All Is Normal 	Barbara 	
2006	The Powder Puff Principle 	School Board President	Short film
2009	IMPS* 	Jamie 	Filmed in 1983
2012	An Affair of the Heart 	Herself 	Documentary
2016	Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel 	Helen Harris 	
==Gallery==
Linda Blair.jpeg
==External links==
*Linda Blair on Wikipedia 
*Linda Blair at the Internet Movie Database
*Facebook
*Instagram
Category:1959 births
Category:Living people
Category:American actresses
Category:American film actresses
Category:Film actresses
Category:Actresses
Category:20th-century American actresses
Category:21st-century American actresses
Category:American child actresses
Category:Child actresses
Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners