Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959) is an American actress and activist. Her breakthrough role came with playing Regan MacNeil in the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which established her both as a scream queen and in popular culture. The role earned her a Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised the role in two sequels: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Exorcist: Believer (2023).
Blair has starred in several television films, including Born Innocent (1974), Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975), and Stranger in Our House (1978). She has also starred in exploitation and grindhouse films, including Hell Night (1981), Chained Heat (1983), and Savage Streets (1984). Her role in the musical film Roller Boogie (1979) brought her renewed recognition as a sex symbol. She was the host of the Fox Family reality series Scariest Places on Earth (2000–2006) and made appearances on the Animal Planet 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 non-profit organization that works to rehabilitate and adopt rescue animals.
Early life
Linda Denise Blair was born on January 22, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri, to James Frederick and Elinore ( Leitch) Blair. Blair is of Scottish ancestry. She has an older sister, Debbie, and an older brother, Jim. Linda worked as a child model at age five, appearing in Sears, JCPenney and Macy's catalogues, and in over 70 commercials for Welch's grape jams and various other companies. In 1972, She 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 she 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 she denied, A steady series of job offers led her to relocate to Los Angeles in 1975, where she lived with her older sister, Debbie.
Blair's career took a new turn in 1979 with her starring role in the musical drama Roller Boogie, which established her as a sex symbol. The following year, she co-starred with Dirk Benedict in Ruckus, playing a young woman who helps a maligned Vietnam veteran evade antagonistic locals in a small town. She also starred in a number of financially successful low-budget horror and exploitation films throughout much of the 1980s. She starred opposite Peter Barton and Vincent Van Patten in the slasher film Hell Night (1981), followed by roles in the women-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983), playing a teenager in a women's prison, and the exploitation thriller Savage Streets (1984), in which she played the leader of a female vigilante street gang who target male rapists. In a review of Savage Streets published by TV Guide, her performance was deemed "her best since The Exorcist (1973)... and that's not saying much." Also in 1983, Blair posed nude in an issue of Playboy.
The era of her career between 1980 and 1985 was marked by some critical backlash, with Blair earning a total of five Razzie Award nominations and being awarded two Razzies for Worst Actress. In the late 1980s, she worked in numerous low-budget horror films, including Grotesque (1988), opposite Tab Hunter, and the Italian production Witchery (1988), opposite David Hasselhoff. The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy Up Your Alley opposite Murray Langston, and the Exorcist spoof Repossessed in 1990, co-starring Leslie Nielsen. She also appeared in several Australian B-movies in the early 1990s, including Fatal Bond (1991) and Dead Sleep (1992).
thumb|left|Blair in 1999
In 1996, Blair reunited with director Wes Craven for a cameo role as a reporter in Scream (1996), In 1997 she starred in a Broadway revival of Grease, playing Rizzo. Also in 1997, she appeared in a documentary for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom entitled Didn't You Used to be Satan?, which served as a biography of her life to that point and how the film The Exorcist had dominated her career and life. she appeared in critic Mark Kermode's 1998 BBC documentary The Fear of God (which Kermode directed and hosted), included as a special feature on the DVD of The Exorcist. In 1999, she appeared in an online parody of The Blair Witch Project titled The Blair Bitch Project.
In 2000, she was cast as a regular in the BBC television show, L.A. 7, and between 2001 and 2003, hosted Fox Family's Scariest Places on Earth, a reality series profiling reportedly haunted locations throughout the world.
In 2006, she guest-starred on The CW television series Supernatural, playing the part of Detective Diana Ballard, as she aids Sam and Dean Winchester in the episode "The Usual Suspects", which aired November 9, 2006. In 2013, she accepted a role in the comedy web series Whoa!, and has since appeared in the 2016 feature The Green Fairy, and the films Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel (2016) and the upcoming Landfill (post-production).
In 2022, Blair competed in season eight of The Masked Singer as "Scarecrow", resembling a pumpkin-headed scarecrow. Before the first elimination on "Fright Night" could be announced, she interrupted Nick Cannon by declaring forfeit while claiming that her fellow contestants "Sir Bug a Boo" (who would be unmasked in the same episode to be Ray Parker Jr.) and "Snowstorm" (later unmasked in the following episode as Nikki Glaser) should face off. When unmasked, Blair praised the show and said that she wanted to talk about her animal charity, the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation Rescue and Wellness Center, in light of the nation's animal crisis – and to also annoy Ken Jeong, as she claimed that he annoys everyone on the show.
In October 2023, Blair reprised the role of Regan MacNeil during a cameo in The Exorcist: Believer. In January 2025, she revealed that she was working on a memoir, along with her intentions to restart her acting career.
Charitable activities
Blair supports animal welfare. She was a vegetarian for 13 years, before becoming a vegan in 2001. In that year, she co-authored the book Going Vegan!. In 2004, she founded the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to rescue and rehabilitate abused, neglected, and mistreated animals and provide them with needed pet care.
She has also worked with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Feed the Children, Variety, the Children's Charity, and other organizations, In August 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she travelled to Mississippi and saved 51 abandoned dogs.
Personal life
thumb|Blair in 2012
At age 15, Blair dated Australian singer Rick Springfield, 25 years old at the time, whom she met during a concert at the Whisky a Go Go. They dated for two years, and James wrote his hit song "Cold Blooded" about her. Speaking on their relationship in his book Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James, he said: "Linda was incredible. A free spirit. A beautiful mind. A mind-blowing body. She liked getting high and getting down as much as I did. We posed topless for a photograph that showed up everywhere. We didn't care. We were doing our own thing our own way. It was a love affair that I hoped would last. It didn't." James revealed that he found out Blair had been pregnant by him, and had an abortion without his knowledge.
On December 20, 1977, at 18 years old, she was arrested for drug possession and conspiracy to sell drugs. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine, in exchange for three years' probation. She was also required to make at least twelve major public appearances to tell young people about the dangers of drug abuse.
She believes in the paranormal.
In 2014, Blair revealed that she was treated for an umbilical hernia. , she lived in Coto de Caza, California.
In a December 2025 interview with Billy Corgan, Blair stated that she had been diagnosed with Graves' disease in 2023, after experiencing numerous symptoms which were discovered to be stemming from a near-fatal thyroid storm.
Filmography
Film
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
! class="unsortable"|
|-
| 1970 || The Way We Live Now || Sara Aldridge || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 1971 || The Sporting Club || Barby || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| Bedroom Eyes II || Sophie Stevens || || style=text-align:center|
|-
|rowspan=3|1990 || Zapped Again! || Miss Mitchell || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| Repossessed || Nancy Aglet || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| Dead Sleep || Maggie Healey || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 1991 || Fatal Bond || Leonie Stevens || || style=text-align:center|
|-
|rowspan=2| 1992 || Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer?: The Bambi Bembenek Story || Jane Mder || rowspan="2" | Television film || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 2003 || Monster Makers || Shelly Stoker || Television film || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 2009 || IMPS* || Jamie || Filmed in 1983 || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 2012 || An Affair of the Heart || Herself || Documentary film || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 2016 || Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel || Helen Harris || || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 2021 || Landfill || Detective Karen Atwood || || style="text-align:center" |
|-
| 2023 || The Exorcist: Believer || Regan MacNeil || Cameo|| style="text-align:center" |
|-
| 2025 || Boorman and the Devil || Herself || Documentary film || style="text-align:center" |
|}
Television
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
! class="unsortable"|
|-
| 1968–1969 || Hidden Faces || Allyn Jaffe || Unknown episodes || style=text-align:center|
|-
|1974
|What's My Line?
|Herself
|Mystery Guest
|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1982 || Fantasy Island||Sarah Jean Rollings || Episode:"King Arthur in Mr. Rourke's Court" || style=text-align:center|
|-
| The Love Boat || Muffy || Episode: "Isaac Gets Physical" || style=text-align:center|
|-
| 1985 || Murder, She Wrote || Jane Pascal || Episode: "Murder Takes the Bus"|| style=text-align:center|
|-
| 1998 || Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal || Rebecca Royce || Episode: "All Hallow's Eve" || style=text-align:center|
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2000 || L.A. 7 || rowspan="2" |Joni Witherspoon || 9 episodes|| style=text-align:center|