Jan 22, 1959

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

From the age of six, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, both
as a model and in motion pictures, when out of 600 applicants she got
picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist
(1973). Linda seemed to be set to take the Academy Award for that role,
but when it leaked how little of the possessed child she actually had
been (dubbed voice by Mercedes McCambridge and liberal use of a dummy)
that dream broke, and with that disappointment probably came the first
... ... (read more...) blow to what should have been a sure road to stardom. Over the next few
years she had no trouble finding leading roles in a number of pictures,
mostly as some kind of abused child (13-year-old alcoholic, rape victim,
to mention a few), but the early attention brought with it life in the
fast lane and Linda, as quite a few others in recent years, hadn't had
the time to learn how to handle it, and drugs, a stream of unsteady
relationships and other factors almost brought her career to an end