The exorcist actress and her curse: a pact with the devil and the stigma of being possessed | News from El Salvador

One of the most shocking scenes in the movie The Exorcist lasts a few minutes, but it’s hard to forget, you know what it is, but we’ll describe it: Chris MacNeil finds his daughter in bed next to him, swearing with a crucifix between his legs bloody. When she wants to get closer, she is pushed with a bestial force against the wall. Then Regan MacNeil’s head turns 180 degrees and says to his mother, “Do you know what your daughter’s sow did?”

A 12-year-old girl possessed by the devil, so far this is one of the most powerful and controversial roles in the history of the film.

It all started when in August 1972, pre-teen actress Linda Blair was chosen to play her out of 600 candidates, in which she surpassed other prodigious actresses such as Melanie Griffith and Laura Dern. The focus of The Exorcist, considered by many to be the best horror film of all time, and to this day the second highest grossing film of its kind, was on Regan.

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The beautiful Linda, at the age of 13, already had a reputation as a model, since she started at the age of five and had gained some popularity as a face in Macy’s catalogs and in a series of commercials published by The New York Times. With the film he became known around the world, but he never imagined that he would not be able to escape the evil stigma of the film.

For the producers, she was the perfect person who stood out in the rigorous search, because the chosen one had to interpret both good and evil and have the ability to tolerate it.

The screenwriter and producer of the film, William Peter Blatty, the author of the bestseller on which it is based, tells in the biographical documentary about Blair Weren’t you satan? (1996) who never expected to actually find a “normal” girl of that age capable of doing so. “Think how shocking the plot, the language … God!”

In fact, Jamie Lee Curtis had also been selected for the role, but her mother, actress Janet Leigh, considered her too young to do so. Linda, on the other hand, surprised the director, William Friedkin, from the first interviews. When asked if he had read the book, Blair said yes: “It’s about a possessed girl who does a lot of bad things.” “Bad things like what?” Friedkin asked. “He pushes a man out the window of his room, hits his mother and masturbates with a crucifix.” “Do you know what this is?” Have you ever done it? Blair laughed, “Obviously not?”

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According to Blatty, he and the director had an unspoken agreement to protect Blair during filming, but at one point, they realized that “it was just impossible.” The filming lasted eleven months in which the girl was exposed to the stress of living with a macabre life-size doll of hers and being subjected to endless make-up sessions to look like a purse. Also to Friedkin’s harsh methods, which included hanging her from a harness for a scene in which she levitates and falls hard and for which she had sequels on her spine for life.

For this scene, the actress had to be operated on years after the recording, because she suffered a fractured vertebra and suffered from chronic pain for years, but at that time she did not receive medical care: “At that time I did not receive assistance medical, did not call a doctor. They thought he was acting. “

On stage, the screams are painful and do not work.

The curse

The film was postponed for several months and it is said that Friedkin himself was responsible for the marketing campaign that began to ensure that a curse haunted the film. However, some events that took place during this period contributed to the rumor. The first red flags were fired at the beginning of filming, when a fire destroyed the New York plateau. There were no injuries to regret, but something caught the staff’s attention: the only part of the studio that was not damaged was the room used for Regan’s exorcism scenes.

To this were added several samples of people related to the team, including that of actor Jack MacGowran and actress Vasiliki Mailiaros, whose characters also died in the film. The person in charge of the refrigeration (basically because it was filmed with sub-zero temperatures so that real steam could be seen coming out of their mouths) and a guard, as well as Linda’s grandfather, among others, died.

Even cast members, such as Ellen Burstyn, Blair’s mother in the script, began to believe in the curse. Thus, it began to be common to see real cures that mix between the fictitious ones to throw holy water on the plateau. Until then, Burstyn gave Blair a horseshoe bracelet to protect herself from the demon that would accompany her in her hardest years.

But that was not all, after the long-awaited premiere of the film in December 1973, fainting, vomiting, heart attacks and at least one miscarriage began to be reported in the projection rooms. The film was accused of causing mental disorders to viewers and was even used as a defense argument for a murderer who said he became possessed after seeing the film.

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Despite all this, the movie was a boom and people lined up to see that girl in a trance pouring green and cursing. Linda’s image immediately became synonymous with the devil.

Even during this period, it turned out that the actress had been hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, and the solution found by Warner Bross, who was responsible for production, was to send her on a promotional tour. The documentary about her life shows her on tour, with questions from the press at just 14 years old: “Linda, it is said that the film affected you psychologically, what is the situation?” She laughs and replies, “I think people felt he was going to get me in trouble, but it’s not like that.”

Versions of her crazy or possessed did not stop. If she had been under the protection of the press throughout the filming, now she was, instead of the adult protagonists of the film, the one in charge of answering about God, faith, religion and Satan. “I did my job without asking who the devil was, I was a professional, I would confess much later, but the movie ended and my story changed.”

Being conceived as the most tangible face of the devil has complicated the rest of her daily life:

“I couldn’t go to the supermarket, to a store or anywhere. People saw me and were scared to death. They couldn’t separate the film from the person: they looked at me as if I were the devil “.

She also began to be harassed by religious groups and fanatics who claimed she was possessed and would kidnap her. This led to her hiding in the homes of her parents’ friends, Warner even hired bodyguards to accompany her for six months after the premiere.

That left him with a trauma that he did not overcome: “I think it is one of the main reasons why I never had a child: I was terrified of my abduction.”

Drugs and the pact with the devilA

Another very strong rumor was that the actress’ parents made a pact with the devil and this was reinforced when the film received ten Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Blair. She also won the Golden Globe, but although she impressed critics and catapulted her career to fame, her performance left such an indelible mark on the audience that it was difficult for her to be considered for a role other than that of a girl in danger. . This was demonstrated by the next two films, the controversial Nacida Inocente (1974), in which she was abused by her peers at a juvenile center and Sarah T. The Portrait of an Alcoholic Teenager (1975).

Soon, her roles became a reality, the actress spent nine months in a rehabilitation center and also made public appearances in which she sent messages to young people about the dangers of drugs as part of community tasks. In the same year, The Heretic was released, a sequel to The Exorcist, which was received with terrible criticism. Blair gained weight and the press even mocked his weight. At that time, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for depression.

Her courtship with musician Rick James, known for his orgies and crack addiction in 1981, marginalized her again from major Hollywood productions. He ended up accepting roles in class B movies and erotic thrillers and even posed nude for Playboy to show that he has regained his figure.

Somehow, the battle between good and evil in the body of the incarnate girl was still raging in his.

Long before he changed his life, Blair rode a horse and dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Only in time did he manage to return to the sources: in 2004 he created the non-profit Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which rescues and rehabilitates abandoned animals. She changed her diet and, after thirteen years of vegetarianism, became a vegan in 2001 and wrote a book about her experience. Today, on her 62nd birthday, on January 22, the pea cream she poured into her role as Regan MacNeil is still one of her favorite dishes.

“Do you also believe in the curse of the Exorcist?”, They asked her ten years ago, at the age of 52, in an interview for El País, in which she is strongly described as having the body of a girl with biceps, her face stretched out in Brazil and an intensity in the smile and in the totally demonic look ”; she replies, “To me, the devil is not a joke. But people don’t let me forget the Exorcist. Fame made my life impossible. “