He was raised in what he described as 'comfortable destitution' by his deeply religious mother, whose sole support came from peddling homemade quince jelly in the streets of Manhattan she once offered a jar of it to Franklin D.

His parents separated when he was a toddler. He was the fifthĪnd youngest child of Lebanese immigrants, Mary ( née Mouakad), a devout Catholic and the niece of a bishop, and Peter Blatty, a cloth cutter. Blatty would remain active as a novelist for the rest of his life some of his later notable novels include Elsewhere (2009), Dimiter (2010) and Crazy (2010).īlatty was born on January 7, 1928, in New York City. His second film as a director, The Exorcist III would turn out to be both his final directorial credit and his final screenplay credit. However, he would go on to write and direct the second sequel, The Exorcist III (1990), which he adapted from his 1983 novel Legion. At the 38th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture.īlatty refused to have any involvement with the first sequel to The Exorcist, which was ultimately critically panned. He went on to adapt the novel into a film of the same name, The Ninth Configuration (1980), which was also his directorial debut. After service in the air force, he worked for the United States Information Agency in Beirut.Īfter the success of The Exorcist, Blatty reworked his 1966 novel Twinkle, Twinkle, 'Killer' Kane! into a new novel titled The Ninth Configuration, published in 1978. Following completion of his master's degree in 1954, he joined the United States Air Force and served in the Psychological Warfare Division where he attained the rank of first lieutenant. The film also earned Blatty a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama as producer.īorn and raised in New York City, Blatty received his bachelor's degree in English from Georgetown University in 1950, and his master's degree in English literature from the George Washington University. Blatty won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Exorcist, and was nominated for Best Picture as its producer. He is best known for his 1971 novel, The Exorcist, and for his 1973 screenplay for the film adaptation of the same name. The book was the focus of a court case over its exclusion from The New York Times Best Seller list.Blatty based aspects of the Gemini Killer on the real life Zodiac Killer, who, in a January 1974 letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, had praised the original Exorcist film as 'the best satirical comedy that I have ever seen'.William Peter Blatty (Janu– January 12, 2017) was an American writer, director and producer. Like The Exorcist, it involves demonic possession. It was made into the movie The Exorcist III in 1990.

Legion is a 1983 horror novel by William Peter Blatty, a sequel to The Exorcist.

Legion blatty