Linda Blair began modelling when she was five years old. By her teens she had started acting on television and movies, and in 1973 she got an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Regan, the demon-possessed child in The Exorcist (co-starring Max von Sydow). She also appeared four years later in the sequel, and starred in the cult favorite Roller Boogie in 1979. Blair has appeared in dozens of movies, TV shows and performed on Broadway (in Grease as Rizzo), and is a well-known advocate for animal welfare and environmental causes.
Although many people assume that The Exorcist (1974) was American actress Linda Blair's film debut, she had actually been working in commercials since age six. Blair was chosen from a field of 500 hopefuls for Exorcist because of her resemblance to the film's star, Ellen Burstyn. To the casual viewer, the film, which dealt with the Devil's possession of an innocent preteen girl, was hardly the sort of fare that any responsible parent would allow their child to appear in. But the Exorcist's director, William Friedkin, was careful to prearrange the special effects (head turning around, bloody body wounds, vomiting green bile) with the least amount of danger or trauma for Blair. From all reports, she handled the assignment like a trouper, though she balked at having her hair messed up for the purposes of the plot. Blair was nominated for an Academy Award for her Exorcist work, but this campaign was scuttled when it was learned that, not only had the girl been extensively doubled by a dummy, but her horrendous "Satan" voice, explicit obscenities and all, had been dubbed by adult actress Mercedes McCambridge. A major celebrity at 15, Blair was able for a while to parlay her Exorcist work into a series of demanding film and TV roles, most of which cast her as a much-abused victim. Her rape scene in the TV movie Born Innocent was so graphic that the network was forced to cut the scene when the film was rerun. In other appearances, Blair played a teen alcoholic, a kidnap victim, a heart-transplant patient on an endangered airliner, and her Exorcist role again in Exorcist II (1977). By this time, Blair was unable to maintain the equilibrium of her career, which degenerated into exploitative crime or girls-in-prison films. More recently, Blair was seen in Repossessed (1990), a ham-handed spoof of the film that made her famous. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Towards the end of the 1970s, Blair encountered trouble with law enforcement authorities as she was arrested and charged with drug possession and conspiracy to sell drugs: after trial, she was found not guilty of possession, but guilty of conspiracy to sell, leading her to get a reduced sentence of three years' probation. Though she tried to act in films, Blair found it hard to restart her screen career and landed low grade films in the 1980s and later. As she herself said in an interview, her career "went down faster than the Titanic".[cite this quote]
Blair's career took a new turn in the 1980s, as she starred in a number of low-budget horror and exploitation films, including Hell Night (1981), Chained Heat (1983) and Savage Streets (1984).
Blair has since worked in numerous films, including the Exorcist spoof, Repossessed (1990), and a cameo role in Scream (1996). In 1997, she appeared in a Broadway revival of Grease. She was cast as a regular in the BBC television show, L.A. 7 (2000). She hosted Fox Family's Scariest Places On Earth (2000-6).
Blair has become an animal rights activist and humanitarian, working with PETA, Feed The Children, Variety, the Children's Charity and other organizations.[1] Blair also devotes time to her non-profit organization, the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which works to rescue abused, neglected and mistreated animals. She is a vegan, and has co-authored the book Going Vegan!.
In 2008 she turned up at the 18th annual Malaga Fantasy and Horror Film Festival to accept a lifetime achievement award for her work in the horror genre.
She appeared in the 2009 documentaryConfessions of a Teenage Vigilante, discussing her role as Brenda in Savage Streets (1984). The documentary is included as a bonus feature on the 2009 DVD release of the film.
In late 2010 it was announced that Blair is in talks to return to horror films for the upcoming Cousin Sarah. Also in 2010 she appeared as herself on the cable series Pit Boss and Jury Duty. She appears in the 2011 Rick Springfield documentary Affair of the Heart, and was a panelist in a 2011 episode of The Joy Behar Show.
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