Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959) is an American actress and activist. Known for her work in the horror genre, she first came to prominence with her portrayal of Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973), for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film established her as a scream queen; she reprised her role in two sequels: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Exorcist: Believer (2023).
Blair has starred in several television films, such as Born Innocent (1974), Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975) and Stranger in Our House (1978). Her role in the musical film Roller Boogie (1979) brought her a reputation as a sex symbol. She has appeared in various exploitation and grindhouse films, such as Hell Night (1981), Chained Heat (1983) and Savage Streets (1984). Blair was the host of the Fox Family reality series Scariest Places on Earth (2000–2006) and made regular appearances on the Animal Planet reality series Pit Boss (2010–2012).
Blair is a prominent activist for the animal rights movement. In 2004, she founded the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves to rehabilitate and adopt rescue animals. A vegan, she co-authored the book Going Vegan! in 2001.
Early life
Linda Denise Blair was born January 22, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri, to James Frederick and Elinore ( 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
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 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.