‘Exorcist’ Author William Peter Blatty Dies at 89

Author and noted Georgetown University alumnus William Peter Blatty has died at the age of 89.

“The Exorcist” on the other hand will live forever. Which means that Blatty will have achieved that status here on earth.

But that’s been the case for a long time, ever since his novel, “The Exorcist,” a very frightening, scary novel about a duel to—literally—the death with the devil’s demon, as two priests fight for the soul of a young girl right here among us in Georgetown.

That  book—not the prolific and sometimes contentious Blatty’s only book, but certainly his most ever-lasting famous effort—became a huge best-seller and was the basis for a William Friedkin-directed film in the 1970s, starring Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, the venerable Swedish actor Max Von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, and Linda Blair as a possessed child.

“The Exorcist”—the movie—also became a smash hit, and for its time was noted for its startling, gruesome special effects—head swiveling, green slime—and, locally, for the filming  of the death of one of its characters falling down the now famous and infamous Georgetown steps next to the Car Barn, descending from Prospect Street to M Street, which became something of an unholy shrine for visitors and locals alike.

A devout Roman Catholic of Lebanese descent—his parents reportedly came to America on a cattle boat—Blatty endured a difficult childhood, raised by his mother after the father left home, when Blatty was three.  Stories have it that he lived at 28 different addresses during his childhood.  He went to Brooklyn Preparatory School, a Jesuit school on a scholarship, graduated as a valedictorian and attended Georgetown University, also on scholarship. His master’s degree in English literature included a thesis, “T.S. Eliot’s Shakespearean Criticism.” 

His career and life warranted a novel—he worked as a door-to-door salesman for the Electrolux vacuum cleaner company, was a Gunther Beer truck relief driver, a ticket agent for United Airlines and joined the Air Force, where he worked as the head of the Policy Branch of the USLAF Psychological Warfare Division.

That experience led to his first book, an autobiographical effort called “Which Way to Mecca, Jack?” Around the same time he was also a contestant on the Groucho Marx quiz show, “You Bet Your Life,” reportedly winning $10,000. That allowed him to write full time. His writings before “The Exorcist” included  a ghost-writing gig, for “Dear Abby’s” best selling book “Dear Teenager” —  and the novels, “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home,” “I, Billy Shakespeare”  and the dark comedy, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane.” In the 1960s, he also wrote the scripts for the Blake Edwards comedies, “A Shot In the Dark,” and other films.

Then, writing relentlessly at a rented chalet in Lake Tahoe, Blatty wrote “The Exorcist” about a 12-year-old girl possessed by demon. The book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 57 straight weeks, 17 of them at number one. His screenplay for the film won an Oscar. 

There were other books, but the “Exorcist” always loomed large in his life (and ours), never far away — and never surpassed.

On the universality and staying power of “The Exorcist,” Blatty wrote, “This novel is an affirmation that there is a final justice in the universe; that man is something more than a neuron net; that there is a high degree of probability — let’s not beat around the bush — that there is an intelligence, a creator whom C.S. Lewis famously alluded to as ‘the love that made the worlds.’ ”

In 2015, Georgetown and Washington, D.C., was host to a full-blown commemoration of the Exorcist Steps in Georgetown, complete with a commemorative plaque installed at 36th Street and M Street.  The event—crowded with fans and students—also included the attendance of Blatty himself, along with Friedkin, and friends like artist William Dunlap. (The dedication included speeches by Blatty, Friedkin, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Georgetown University President John DeGioia.)

It’s fair to say that “The Exorcist” as an explicit adaptation was so horrific that any previous films seemed tame in retrospect.  From then on, horror films were gruesome to the extreme and continue to be so.  It was also at some point during the 1970s that major, street-filling Halloween celebrations became a Georgetown tradition.

As Grand-Guignol efforts, the novel “The Exorcist” was a masterpiece of the genre.  But it was also, if you read it, a fine novel, which the mantle of huge bestsellerhood and the film’s more horrific aspects, sometime obscured.

Blatty, even if he wanted to, could never quite exorcise “The Exorcist,” but it also preserves the prestige and trumpets an ever-lasting fame of an American original, who ran through all of life’s aspects and opportunities, a man and writer in full.