Sanguine
Linda Blair and Demi Moore are the only actresses to win a Golden Globe acting award for a horror movie. Linda, however, is such an iconic actress that her name served as the inspiration of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Rock music and horror go well together, but Linda fell in with the wrong crowd when she was under the age of 18. If anything could explain the downfall of her acting career, it would be a 1974 photo session that was taken at Keith Moon’s 28th birthday party. While everyone had their clothes on, it made Linda Blair look bad to be seen in the same space as an adult entertainer with the same forename - Linda Lovelace. This would end up foreshadowing Blair’s erotic photos which were published in Playboy and Oui. This is why it wasn’t surprising when Blair had her photo taken with Ginger Lynn at the 2013 Monsterpalooza in Burbank, California.
In the April 10, 2000 issue of People Weekly, it was mentioned that Linda Blair was writing her autobiography…but it still hasn’t been published. The above photos were taken on September 21, 2000. The special occasion was a re-release screening of The Exorcist, which was originally released in December 1973. William Friedkin did not celebrate the 50th anniversary because he died in August 2023. Recently, Blair has been talking about her upcoming book. She made it clear that fans of Friedkin will not like what she has to say about him. I hope that her mother didn’t sleep with him. Like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance (1983), Blair’s career did not progress that much when it was revealed that she wasn’t the only actress playing her character (although it didn’t help that there were attempts by the studios to stop the other actresses from getting their recognition).
Linda got into far less serious trouble than Traci Lords did, but the latter ended up having a more high-profile career in the nineties. Compare their TV credits. Traci’s scandal was a different kettle of fish, so let’s find a closer comparison: Demi Moore. She wasn’t busted but her addiction was so bad that it almost derailed her career in the mid ‘80s. Linda’s career trajectory was strange. Compare her to Carrie Fisher, whose success with Star Wars (1977) didn’t resign her to a fate of sci-fi films. Perhaps had Linda not rejected the chance to star in Carrie (1976), Warner Brothers would have thought twice about making Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). The latter was released a month after Star Wars was. Ironically, Jaws 2 (1978) was a far more lucrative sequel. To lend greater contrast, Wes Craven directed Linda in a 1978 TV movie.
People like to go on about Linda hooking up with Rick James but nothing is said about her jumping the bones of Richard Pryor. Before she married him again many years later, Jennifer Lee wrote a memoir where she claimed to have fornicated with Linda. Tarnished Angel was a few months too late to be a tenth anniversary of their marriage (August 1981), but it was published on the ninth anniversary of when their divorce was finalized (October 1982). The photo of Richard with Linda was taken during the premiere for Some Kind of Hero i.e. April 2, 1982. She wasn’t in this movie, but Margot Kidder was. Margot fell in love with him in 1981, so it’s no surprise that he was cast in Superman III (1983). In 1980, Richard was metaphorically and literally burned from his use of cocaine, but he still got more mainstream films than Linda.
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When Blair’s Roller Boogie came out in December 1979, the Golden Harvest film company could have paid attention. Jackie Chan’s Battle Creek Brawl (1980) had a roller-skating sequence, and the director of Roller Boogie was somebody who Golden Harvest later wanted to work with. Sadly, Mark L. Lester was not hired to direct Jackie’s The Protector in 1984. G.H. also made a mistake when they didn’t go through with making Jackie’s Why Me? in 1980. Not only would it have predated The Karate Kid (1984) but Jackie playing a college student would have allowed for Linda Blair to play his love interest i.e. the Elisabeth Shue to his Ralph Macchio. This makes for an interesting coincidence of sorts given that Rick James wrote a 2007 memoir about having done coke with Shue. She never had an iconic role like Linda did but Shue did more A-list films.
The photo on the left was taken in Van Nuys on July 30, 2000. Alicia joined Linda at Worldfest L.A. to help promote veganism, animal rights and other causes. As for the photo on the right, it was taken in Beverly Hills on March 15, 2003. Both ladies attended the 17th Genesis Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. This was another animal awareness event. Alicia Silverstone had a passing resemblance to a ‘70s actress named Lindsay Wagner, who was in a Golden Harvest film called High Risk (1981). In 1989, Jet Li starred in a G.H. film that was released in 1992 i.e. The Master. In 1989, Linda Blair starred in a horror film that was released in 1992 i.e. The Chilling. Unlike the late ‘70s, the late ‘80s did not have Linda’s social circle comprise of rock stars. This is reminiscent of how Tawny Kitaen distanced herself from the heavy metal community by the mid ‘90s.
Linda replaced a rock star as the lead of a film i.e. Cherie Currie in Savage Streets (1984). The main producer, John Strong, was someone who Golden Harvest later worked with. One thing that may have attracted rock stars to Linda was that she advertised herself as an equestrian, so these stars most likely associate horse-riding with being in the missionary position. Despite the box office success of The Exorcist, Linda’s success was curtailed by starring in a string of TV movies. Compare that to Jodie Foster, three years younger and blessed with the opportunity to work with Martin Scorsese twice - Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976). The TV movies that Linda did, bar Victory at Entebbe (1976), were essentially afterschool specials. Linda dated a rock star (Rick Springfield) from 1974 to 1976, so it seems like someone was teaching somebody a lesson.
The Exorcist was such a popular film that there was a Linda lookalike contest held in Singapore circa late 1975. On the surface, this was done to advertise the Christmas theatrical release of her first TV movie - Born Innocent (1974). The reality was that somebody had coughed up enough money to make a Chinese rip-off of The Exorcist i.e. the prize of the lookalike contest was a one week round trip to Hong Kong. The organizer was a Singaporean film producer and distributor named Sunny Lim Peng Hock. Mr. Lim added that another contest - the ideal parents - would be held in conjunction. In both contests, the prize included food and accommodation in a luxury hotel. According to the manifesto: “Both contests will be open to all Singapore citizens and residents regardless of race, religion or creed.”
Linda’s resemblance to Carrie Fisher in the above photo only serves to highlight the irony of Carrie auditioning for the titular role of Carrie (1976). Fisher was born in 1956 whereas Blair was born in 1959, but the former still had a more famous career in spite of her own addictions. I said it before on my Substack blog, and I will say it here: actresses suffered when trying to sue Playboy. Like Linda, Rosanna Arquette was known for her music star friends but she didn’t get to appear in music videos as compensation for what she missed out on in the worlds of films and television. While 1985 was when Demi Moore barely recovered from her blow addiction, Blair blew it when she filed a US$11 million suit against Oui - the same magazine that Demi posed nude for when she was under the age of 18.
