Cast Trivia

Ellen Burstyn was nominated for her role as Chris MacNeill. She lost out, but won the following year for her excellent turn as the title character in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Ellen Burstyn's real name is Edna Rae Gillooly.

Linda Blair's career did not flourish after The Exorcist. She starred in a string of low-grade TV movies and in 1990 starred in a mediocre spoof of The Exorcist-Repossessed-with Leslie Nielsen as - get this - Father Mayii.

Jason Miller's son is Speed 2 actor Jason Patric

Max Von Sydow's connections with hell haunt his career: he played chess with Death in The Seventh Seal and helped Robin Williams retrieve his wife from down there in What Dreams May Come.

Lee J. Cobb starred in the original Twelve Angry Men, which William Friedkin remade in TV movie from in 1997.

William Friedkin had previously won the Best Director oscar for his brilliant work on The French Connection, which also won best picture that year. It was also this film that inspired Blatty to hire Friedkin to direct The Exorcist.

William Peter Blatty started out writing comedy scripts before writing The Exorcist.

The Exorcist received 10 Oscar Nominations and won just two for best screenplay which went to William Peter Blatty and sound.

The film was released on December 26th, 1973

The 'subliminals' that appear 3 times in the film were actually make-up tests of Eileen Dietz that were rejected by Friedkin but later used to chilling effect.

The demon's raging voice was provided by the vocally neutral Mercedes McCambridge, who later sued for proper credit, like Eileen Dietz, Blair's body double who sued in the famously titled 'Great Pea Soup War.'

The Exorcist is banned in Finland and up until recently, had been banned in the UK too.

Friedkin rejected several scores for the film, including Lalo Schifrin's, which would later be re-used in The Amityville Horror and receive and Oscar nomination.

In the scene where Chris first meets Karras, she stubs her cigarette out and it is in her hand in the next frame.