What Is Linda Blair's Net Worth?
Linda Blair is an American actress and producer who has a net worth of $2 million. Linda Blair Is best known for her Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated performance as Regan MacNeil in the 1973 horror film "The Exorcist." Linda hosted the Fox Family/ABC Family paranormal reality show "Scariest Places on Earth" from 2001 to 2006, and she starred as Joni Witherspoon on the BBC series "L.A. 7" (2000). Blair has more than 70 acting credits to her name, including the films "Airport 1975" (1974), "Hell Night" (1981), "Repossessed" (1990), and "Scream" (1996) and the television series "Hidden Faces" (1968–1969), "Fantasy Island" (1982), "Murder, She Wrote" (1985), and "Supernatural" (2006). Linda has also appeared on game shows and reality series such as "Win, Lose or Draw" (1988), "Hollywood Squares" (2000–2003), "Pit Boss" (2010–2012), "Celebrity Ghost Stories" (2012), and "Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry" (2017), and she was an associate producer on the films "Grotesque" (1988) and "Skins" (1994). In 1997, Blair played Rizzo in a Broadway revival of "Grease."
Early Life
Linda Blair was born Linda Denise Blair on January 22, 1959, in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the daughter of Elinore and James Blair, and she has two older siblings, Debbie and Jim. Blair's father was a former Navy test pilot who later became an executive recruiter, and when Linda was 2 years old, the family moved to Westport, Connecticut, after James landed a job in New York City. Elinore was a real estate agent in Westport. Linda began modeling when she was just 5 years old, and she appeared in catalogs for J.C. Penney, Sears, and Macy's and in more than 70 commercials for companies such as Welch's. When Linda was 6, she was offered a contract to appear in print ads in "The New York Times." Blair started riding horses at a early age and later became a trained equestrian.
Career
In 1968, Linda was cast as Allyn Jaffe on the NBC soap opera "Hidden Faces," and her first film was 1970's "The Way We Live Now." In 1971, she appeared in the film "The Sporting Club," and in 1973, she starred as Regan MacNeil, a 12-year-old girl possessed by a demon, in "The Exorcist" alongside Ellen Burstyn. "The Exorcist" has grossed $441.3 million (or more than $1.8 billion after adjusting for inflation), and it earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Blair. Linda reprised her role in 1977's "Exorcist II: The Heretic." After rising to stardom in "The Exorcist," Blair appeared in the films "Airport 1975" (1974), "Roller Boogie" (1979), and "Wild Horse Hank" (1979) and the TV movies "Born Innocent" (1974), "Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic" (1975), "Sweet Hostage" (1975), "Victory at Entebbe" (1976), and "Summer of Fear" (1978). In the '80s, she guest-starred on "Fantasy Island" (1982), "The Love Boat" (1982), "Murder, She Wrote" (1985), and "Monsters" (1989) and appeared in nearly 20 films, such as "Ruckus" (1980), "Chained Heat" (1983), "Night Patrol" (1984), "Red Heat" (1985), "Nightforce" (1987), "Moving Target" (1988), "Grotesque" (1988), and "The Chilling" (1989).
Blair played the lead role of Marti Gaines in the 1981 slasher movie "Hell Night," and she posed nude for "Playboy" magazine in 1983. She co-starred with Leslie Nielsen and Ned Beatty in the 1990 "Exorcist" parody "Repossessed," and around this time, she also appeared in the films "Zapped Again!" (1990), "Dead Sleep" (1990), and "Fatal Bond" (1991) and the TV movies "Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer?: The Bambi Bembenek Story" (1992) and "Perry Mason: The Case of the Heartbroken Bride" (1992). Linda guest-starred on "MacGyver" (1990), "Married… with Children" (1992), "Renegade" (1996), "Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal" (1998), and "Godzilla: The Series" (1999), and in 1996, she reunited with her "Summer of Fear" director Wes Craven when she played "Obnoxious Reporter" in the hit horror film "Scream." In 2000, she starred as Joni Witherspoon on "L.A. 7," a British television series starring the pop group S Club 7, then she appeared in the "Exorcising the Devil" episode of "History's Mysteries" (2002). Blair guest-starred on "Supernatural" (2006) and was featured in the television documentary "Battling Darkness" (2013), and she starred the TV movie "Monster Makers" (2003) and the films "Hitters Anonymous" (2005), "All Is Normal" (2006), and "Surge of Power: Revenge of the Sequel" (2016). She has served as a guest judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race" (2014) and "American Rescue Dog Show" (2018), and she appeared on "Eli Roth's History of Horror" (2018) and "Cursed Films" (2020). In 2021, she won a Best Actress award at the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival for the film "Landfill."
(Photo by Jerod Harris/WireImage)
Personal Life
When Linda was 15, she dated 25-year-old singer Rick Springfield. She also dated guitarist Neil Giraldo (who later married Pat Benatar), Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes, Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw, and actor Wings Hauser. In 1982, Blair posed topless for "Oui" magazine, and in the accompanying interview, she said that singer Rick James was "very sexy." Linda and Rick subsequently dated for two years, and she was the subject of his song "Cold Blooded."
In his 2014 book "Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James" (which was released 10 years after Rick's death), James wrote of the relationship, "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….It was a love affair that I hoped would last. It didn't." He also revealed in the book that Linda told him that she "had an abortion, and that it had been [his] child."
In late 1977, Blair was arrested in Connecticut and charged with "conspiracy to commit a felony in the alleged sale and purchase of cocaine." She received three years' probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess cocaine, and she was ordered to make several public appearances to speak to youths about the dangers of drugs.
During a 2014 appearance on "The Doctors," Blair revealed that she had recently been diagnosed with an umbilical hernia.
Animal Rescue
In 2004, she established the nonprofit organization the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which is dedicated to "rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming abused, neglected and abandoned animals." Linda became a vegan in the early 2000s after more than a decade of being a vegetarian, and she co-wrote the 2001 book "Going Vegan!" with Sunny J. Harris.
Awards and Nominations
In 1974, Blair received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and Most Promising Newcomer – Female for "The Exorcist." Linda won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, and around this time, she also earned two Bravo Otto nominations for Best Actress (1974 and 1975). In 1991, she received the Joe Bob Briggs Life Time Achievement Award for Horror, and in 2007, she was inducted into the Phoenix International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival Hall of Fame. "Born Innocent" earned a TV Land Award nomination for Blockbuster Movie of the Week in 2006, and in 2021, "Landfill" received a Hollywood Blood Horror Festival award for Best Acting Ensemble and a Seattle Film Festival award nomination for Best Ensemble in a Feature Film. "Landfill" also earned Blair a Hollywood Blood Horror Festival Best Actress award.
