DISPOSSESSED

(Taken from Fear Magazine )

(Issue 6  - May/June 1989)

Linda Blair, star of The Exorcist, was tormented both on and off screen for her role as the devil-posessed child Regan. Sections of the press and public alike pilloried her parents for letting her take part in the movie. Yet as Allan Bryce discovers, despite continued press criticism of her lifestyle, she is proud of that part and still an actress.

Many actresses have started their careers in exploitation movies, and then denounced them after moving into mainstream.  But good old Linda Blair seems to have dont it in reverse, starting off with an Oscar nomination for her first screen role as the devil-possessed Regan in The Exorcist, and graduating to chicks-in-chains potboilers and the kind of flicks where the hero only gets the girl after all the rest of the cast have had a good shot at her.
        Her latest magnum opus is Medusa's Silent Assassins, in which she plays a 'nice' part for a change as the simpering girlfriend of LA cop Sam Kettle ( Sam Jones) and gets kidnapped by a bunch of ninja warriors like the menu at your local Chinese takeaway.  It's a typical thud and blunder epic, the like of which Miss Blair could ( and possibly did) do in her sleep.  but as we found when we talked to her recently she was pleasently unapologetic about the fact: 'It may not be art,' she chuckled, 'but listen, if anybody likes Chuck Norris type movies, I think it's as good as any of those . . .'
   Nobody could really dislike Linda Blair after meeting her in person: she's bright, enthusiastic, friendly, and perhaps above all, appealingly vulnerable ( a fact exploited to the maximum in that aviation classic Airport 1975 where she played a youngster in need of an emergency kidney transplant.  'Poor kid,' noted one concerned bystander: 'She's in Washington and her kidney is in Los Angeles.')  But then most of the people who write nasty things about her haven't met her at all --- they've just seen a few too many of her movies.

        'Can you believe that i even had some bad press in England this year?'  she complains, 'just because I was dating a professional football player.  They wrote terrible things about me that were so wrong that I just wanted to sue them.  But I couldn't be bothered to waste time on them, they're second rate.  This article said I hadn't worked since I was 18.  They found a picture from Airport 1975 where i was lying on my back looking horrible --- I think they picked it out intentionally!  Why do people write bad things about me when I'm out there hustling and working as hard as I can trying to change my career?  I'm reliable in the business.  I'm not a mean person.  I'm not rude.'  I assured her she didn't have to convince me --- I even like her movies.
 

DISTURBED
Connecticut-born Linda's showbiz career took off when she started modelling commercials in New York at the age of five.  The turning point came when she went to audition for The Exorcist.  'I came out from the interview and I said to my mother 'That was the filthiest piece of paper I've ever had to read!'  Well, I went on to meet with the director many times and go through a number of other auditions until eventually I got the job.  The rest is history --- I think.'
   She was 13 when she made the film, 14 when it opened at cinemas worldwide and ( appropriately enough ) went to become the 13th highest grossing picture of all time.  Many contemporary critics thought that it was wrong to place such an innocent youngster inthe midst of one of the most gruelling horror movies ever made, but Linda says 'I really had no idea what the movie was about when we made it - all the underlying tones of the devil and possession.  To me it was almost a joke and I didn't realise that adults would take it so seriously.  Afterwards the press descended on me and started saying I should be disturbed and maybe on the edge of a nervous breakdown, which was totally untrue.  I just had no conception of what I was involved with.'
        So how did her parents feel about this? ' They knew me well enough to realise it would do me no harm,' she says.  'But it upset me to see them go through a lot of ridicule for very unnecessary reasons.  It is only a movie after all.  People must remember we are here to entertain.  I don't like all the pictures that are made.  I don't like all the pictures i have been in.  But I am proud of my involvement with The Exorcist.  It took me a long time to understand I was part of a very big piece of history in film-making.
 

UNKNOWN COMIC
Linda followed The Exorcist with a number of meaty roles in television movies like Sara T - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (where she played a young girl who takes to the bottle to escape family problems) and Born Innocent (Where she gets thrown into a juvenile detention centre and is raped with a broom handle by fellow inmates!).  Those movies consolidated her reputation as the most put-upon screen teenager of the Seventies and also seemed to convince many pundits that The Exorcist hadn't done that good a job on getting the devil out of her.
        Her private life seemed to back this up: she ran the predictable route to Hollywood maturity through the sex-and-drugs-in-the-headlines syndrome, the gossip columns dining out on her coke bust at age 18 and nude photo set in Oui magazine.  Somewhere along the way she grew up and turned into the sparky, pneumatic heroine that she is today.
        The Linda Blair of the late Eighties is also a self-confessed workaholic who tends to make about five pictures a year and then promptly forgets about them.  'I knew I did one in the Philipines recently ( Beyond Control ) with Chris Mitchum, Robert Mitchum's son.  The script was kind of good, but about halfway through we realised these people didn't know how to make movies at all, and there was nothing we could do.  When the Filipinos make films, they put the camera on you and you say your dialogue and yell, 'Cut!'.  They then move the camera and they edit as they work.  It's amazing that there's ever anything to release afterwards!'
        Her other 1988 projects have included Witchcraft, a low-budget Italian Horror movie with David Hasselhof.  'I've not seen it, she says, 'but I hear it's like a bloody Fellini movie.   Apparently the Italians are very good at putting a lot of graphics in afterwards.  The I did a comedy film with David Langston, who's the Unknown Comic ( he certainly is over here).  It's called Up your Alley and is a very sweet, funny movie.  I am hoping that England will have a very big release for that one . . .'
 

EXORCISED
One thing that Linda isn't involved with is the second Exorcist sequel, now in production in Hollywood.  It's tentatively titled Exorcist: 15 years later and is based on William Peter Blatty's book sequel, Legion.  'I was told a few months ago that they were making Exorcist 3,' says the actress.  'Blatty wrote the book some time back.  It's about a priest killer on the loose in Washington.  That's all I know.  I know it's nothing to do with the original, so my feeling is that the public is going to get angry.  I feel that the audience will be let down.  Blatty doesn't live with it every day like I do.  I know what people feel about it.'
        But she might very well have turned it down even if she was offered it because she is firmly resolved to exorcise her old screen image.  'I'm gonna be a nice girl from now on,' she says firmly.  'Im almost thirty now, and I'm very proud of that.  But it's time to start thinking about what I want to achieve in life.  I want to continue acting, but also go more into the production side of movies.  In fact I am putting together a film myself which is kind of a little bit political but it doesn't preach in any way.  It's about freedom of speech and about who I am as a person.  Who is Linda?  I dont like a lot of things that are going on in the world.  I think there's a lot of pain and suffering and I just want to do films that speak out and say what the hell's happening here, you know?'  Yes, there's no doubt this girl's got a good head on her shoulders --- even if it does sometimes spin at 360 degrees . . .