William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director behind The Exorcist and The French Connection, died today in Los Angeles. He was 87.
His wife and former studio head Sherry Lansing confirmed the news to THR.
Friedkin was born in Chicago in 1935, and started forging his directorial career with live shows and documentaries by the age of 18. One of his early documentaries, The People vs. Paul Crump, caught the eye of agents and other filmmakers, helping him land a job working on one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965.
Infamously, Hitchcock admonished him for not wearing a tie on the show, but Friedkin got the last laugh when, while winning a Directors Guild of America Award for The French Connection years later, he passed Hitchcock and snarked, “How do you like the tie, Hitch?”
Friedkin’s first feature narrative film came in 1965 with Good Times starring Sonny and Cher, followed by The Birthday Party, The Night They Raided Minsky's, and the adaptation of The Boys in the Band.
But he truly gained critical acclaim in 1971 with the now-classic neo-noir crime thriller The French Connection, considered by many to be one of the most influential films of all time. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
His next industry-shifting hit came just a couple of years later with The Exorcist in 1973, which forever changed the horror genre. It was nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture, and solidified Friedkin's place in the “New Hollywood” movement of Hollywood at the time, which saw a new generation of filmmakers like Peter Bogdanovich and Francis Ford Coppola come to prominence.
Friedkin was praised throughout his career for incorporating a gritty, haunting, more independent style of filmmaking to blockbuster movies, which helped films like The French Connection and The Exorcist score both commercial and long-lasting critical success.
He directed plenty of movies after The Exorcist, including 1977's Sorcerer, although that was mostly overshadowed by the success of Star Wars which had come out just a week prior. In the '80s and '90s, he also released Cruising starring Al Pacino, Deal of the Century, Rampage, The Guardian, Jade, and To Live and Die in L.A., the latter of which remains a critical favorite.
Friedkin's final movie, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, is set to debut at this year's Venice Film Festival.
Thumbnail credit: Michael Tercha/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
