When The Exorcist was first screened in 1973 there were howls of indignation from social commentators, moral guardians and critics alike. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the film’s screenplay based on his own bestselling novel, was taken aback. Being a deeply religious man he had imagined it would be seen as having a positive Christian message.
The problem was with the graphic special effects that included the actress Linda Blair’s head turning right round, and scenes and language that many found disgusting. Viewers were revolted in particular by the projectile vomiting and the foul language coming from a 12-year-old girl possessed by demons. In the most shocking scene, Blair’s character masturbates with a crucifix. Some walked out, others fainted and there were reports of cinemas issuing sick bags. However, when the film was given the blessing of the Catholic News, attitudes towards it softened and Batty went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay.
It was certainly a departure from his previous screenwriting work — which included the Pink Panther movie A Shot in the Dark (1964) and the Julie Andrews musical Darling Lili (1970) — but the move from comedy to horror was perhaps not inconsistent with his irregular personality. Blatty was not without his quirks, which included a nervous tic, and he had a complex personal life which, despite his religious convictions, featured a succession of girlfriends and four wives, as well as numerous children, one of whom died suddenly of a rare heart disorder at the age of 19 in 2006. Blatty became convinced that his son was attempting to contact him from beyond the grave and wrote a non-fiction book, published two years ago, called Finding Peter: A True Story of the Hand of Providence and Evidence of Life After Death.
Blatty is survived by his fourth wife, Julie (nee Witbrodt), whom he married in 1983. His previous marriages to Margaret Rigard, Elizabeth Gilman and the professional tennis player Linda Tuero ended in divorce or dissolution. He is survived by seven children: Michael, Christine and Mary Jo from his first marriage, Billy and Jennifer from his third marriage, and Paul from his fourth marriage to Julie.
The youngest of five children, William Peter Blatty was born in New York City in 1928 a few years after his parents arrived from Lebanon on a cattle boat. His mother, Mary, was the niece of a Roman Catholic bishop and his father, Peter, cut cloth in a garment factory. His father walked out when Blatty was about six, and his mother made quince jelly and sold it on the street to support the family, often failing to make enough to pay the rent. “We never lived at the same address in New York for longer than two or three months at a time,” Blatty recalled.
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He worshipped his mother and described her as “a saint in all things in which the heart alone matters”.
Academically gifted, he won scholarships to a Jesuit preparatory school and then to Georgetown University, where he studied English.
After university, Blatty sold vacuum cleaners, then got a job as a truck driver delivering beer before serving in the Air Force’s Psychological Warfare Division and working for the US Information Agency in Beirut.
His life changed in 1961 when he appeared on Groucho Marx’s quiz show You Bet Your Life, initially trying to pass himself off as a sheikh. He won $10,000, which enabled him to quit his job and write full-time. He wrote several comic novels and started a successful collaboration with the film director Blake Edwards on A Shot in the Dark. There may have been several reasons why he swung from comedy to “theological horror”, but he claimed that it was so he could explore his religious beliefs.
“I could paper the walls of my bathroom with rejection slips
He was especially intrigued by a story he heard of a 14-year-old boy in Maryland who was seemingly attended by supernatural phenomena, including levitating furniture, unexplained scratching noises and curses in Latin, a language the boy did not understand. These phenomena reportedly stopped after priests performed an exorcism.
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When his novel The Exorcist was first published in 1971 it was a slow starter. “I got very nice reviews . . . but nobody was buying the book,” he said. The screenplay was greeted with similar indifference. “I could paper the walls of my bathroom with rejection slips.”
He was sounded out for a possible appearance on Dick Cavett’s chat show, and told that he probably would not get on, but was then called in to fill a five-minute slot when someone pulled out. “I threw down my napkin and ran all the way,” he said.
According to Blatty, the actor Robert Shaw was showing signs of having enjoyed a little too much green room hospitality, and his slot was cut short. Blatty found himself talking about The Exorcist on national television for three quarters of an hour. Suddenly the public were queueing up for copies. “I always believe there is a divine hand everywhere,” he said.
After the huge success of the novel — it sold 13 million copies — the ever contrary Blatty rejected his publisher’s overtures for a sequel. Instead he wrote a memoir about his mother called I’ll Tell Them I Remember You (1973). It failed to replicate his previous book’s success. He had nothing to do with the film’s first sequel, but he wrote and directed The Exorcist III (1990), based on his 1983 novel, Legion. He also wrote the theological horror The Ninth Configuration (1980). After The Exorcist, no one ever thought to hire Blatty to script comedies again.
William Peter Blatty, scriptwriter and author, was born on January 7, 1928. He died of multiple myeloma on January 12, 2017, aged 89