Actress Linda Blair was born on January 22nd 1959 in St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of 9, Linda starred in an unsuccessful tv series called Hidden Faces which ran from 1968-1969. Linda has never quite retrieved the heights of her childhood stardom as Regan, the fourteen year old girl possessed by the devil in The Exorcist. Like many child wonders she has had a life fighting with her early fame, drug and alcohol addictions. Her role in The Exorcist was not her first time on screen, Linda had been working as a model and as a child actress since she was six. She was chosen for the part out of a crowd of 500 hopefuls because of her resemblance to the leading lady Ellen Burstyn.
In his efforts to protect the preteen Linda, director William Friedkin, arranged for the most terrifying moments of the film – the head turning, the vomiting of green bile and the bloody wounds - to be filmed using a dummy. When it was leaked that the child was frequently replaced by a dummy and that her Satan voice and its obsentities were actually recorded by an older actress, Linda’s almost certain chances of an Academy Award were dashed. It was the first blow on what should have been a sure road to a lifetime of stardom.
Famous at 15 Linda won contracts off her Exorcist part for a few years, playing a number of difficult leading roles as some kind of abused child. Her most convinvincing roles were as a 13-year old alcoholic and a child rape-victim. Her rape scene was so graphic that it had to be cut. The pressure of these emotionally charged roles and the physical demands of being on set were too much for Linda; she became addicted to drugs and had a bunch of unsteady relationships and her career nose dived. Most of her adult life has been devoted to caring for animals and raising funds for their care.
