William Friedkin Dies: Oscar-Winning ‘French Connection’ Director & ‘Exorcist’ Nominee Was 87
by by William Friedkin, who won an Oscar for directing The French Connection, scored a nomination for The Exorcist and also helmed The Boys in the Band, Cruising, To Live and Die in L.A., Rules of Engagement and many others, died today in Los Angeles of heart failure and pneumonia. He was 87.
His death was confirmed by CAA via his wife, Fatal Attraction producer and former studio chief Sherry Lansing.
Friedkin beat out some serious heavyweights to win the Best Director Academy Award for The French Connection at the 1972 ceremony. Also up for the statuette that year were Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange), Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) and Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof). He would go up against more heavy hitters with The Exorcist two years later. George Roy Hill won that year for The Sting, also besting Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris), Ingmar Bergman (Cries & Whispers) and George Lucas (American Graffiti).
Friedkin’s most recent film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is set to premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, where Friedkin received a career Golden Lion honor in 2013. He adapted the Showtime/Paramount Global film from Herman Wouk’s play. He also was prepping an opera that he would direct in Florence, according to Deadline’s Peter Bart, a longtime friend.
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Born on August 29, 1935, in Chicago, Friedkin began his directing career in TV, helming a mid-’60s episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and a handful of telefilms. His feature career kicked into gear later that decade with such pics as Good Times (1967), The Birthday Party (1968) and The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968).
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After directing 1970’s The Boys in the Band, Friedkin turned to what would be his Oscar winner. Gene Hackman starred as Detective Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, a kinetic thriller highlight by one of the great car-chase scenes in movie history. Doyle drives a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans in a gut-churning high-speed chase of a hitman who is on an elevated train above him in New York City.
The film won four other Oscars including Best Picture, and Friedkin also scored a DGA Award for the pic and a BAFTA nom. It also made AFI’s 100 Years … 100 Movies list of all-time cinema classics.
But he had plenty more in the tank.
He next helmed The Exorcist, among cinema’s most gripping creepshows. Linda Blair starred as a teenager possessed by the devil who wreaks havoc on the priest (Max von Sydow) who is sent to expunge the evil. Her 360 head-spin haunts moviegoers to this day. Soundtracked by the chilling “Tubular Bells” — a Top 10 pop single in the U.S. — the film earned 10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and won for screenwriter William Peter Blatty and Best Sound. Other nominees included mentions for Friedkin, lead actress Ellen Burstyn and supporting actors Blair and Jason Miller.
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A restored version of The Exorcist is set to screen next month at the Venice Film Festival, and Friedkin was looking forward to attending. And Ellen Burstyn is set to reprise her role in a new pic in the works from Blumhouse, Universal and Peacock. The franchise will encompass three films and is described as a “continuation” rather than a remake, of the original. Leslie Odom Jr, Ann Dowd, Raphael Sbarge, Olivia Marcum and Lydia Jewett also are set for the new version.
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A feature documentary about the making of the film, Alexandre O. Philippe’s Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist, had its world premiere at Venice in 2019. Shudder later acquired its rights and aired the pic the following year. Watch a trailer for the docu below.
Friedkin went on to helm 1977’s Sorcerer and 1978’s The Brink’s Job before writing and directing the controversial 1980 pic Cruising. Originally slapped with an X rating by the MPAA over some graphic sex scenes, the crime thriller starring Al Pacino and Paul Sorvino was trimmed by 40 minutes to eventually be released with an R rating.
The director then wrote and helmed the popular William Petersen-Willem Dafoe thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) — also directing the music video for Wang Chung’s title song — and went on to helm features including The Guardian (1990), Blue Chips (1994) and Jade (1995). He also wrote The Guardian.
During that time he also helmed an episode of TV’s The Twilight Zone redo and HBO’s Tales from the Crypt and later scored an Emmy nom for directing the 1998 MGM telepic 12 Angry Men, starring Jack Lemmon, Courtney B. Vance, George C. Scott, Ossie Davis, James Gandolfini, Edward James Olmos, Tony Danza, Petersen and others. He was honored with star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1997.
Friedkin returned to features for his next three projects: military thriller Rules of Engagement (2000), starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson; The Hunted (2003), with Jones and Benecio Del Toro; and Bug, a psychological horror pic starring Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon that premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at Cannes in 2006 and won the FIPRESCI Prize.
Along with Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, his most recent directing credits include exorcism documentary The Devil and Father Amorth (2017), Killer Joe (2011) and two late-’00s episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Along with Lansing, Friedkin is survived by sons Cedtic and Jack. The family plans a private service. In lieu of flowers, they ask that donations be made to the UCLA Medical Center – Heart & Cardiovascular Services.
Here is the trailer for Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist:
