Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress most famous for her role as the possessed child in the 1973 film The Exorcist, and its sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic.
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 Exorcist, The (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 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.
