It’s not much of a holiday movie, but Warner Bros. released the classic horror The Exorcist on December 26, 1973. Based on a novel by author William Peter Blatty (which is said to be based on the real-life exorcism of a young boy in Missouri in 1949), the movie told the story of a young girl, played by 15-year-old Linda Blair, who becomes possessed by a terrifying demonic force. It proved a huge, if controversial, success on its release, and went on to hold the box office record for an R-rated film for the next 44 years (until the release of It in 2017).
At the 1974 Academy Awards, meanwhile, The Exorcist became the first horror movie in cinema history to be nominated for Best Picture—one of an impressive ten Oscars for which it was nominated. And among the others was a well-deserved Best Supporting Actress nomination for the movie’s young star.
For her terrifying performance, Blair was hotly tipped to win the award. But shortly after the movie’s release, a controversy erupted over how much of her performance was truly hers when it was revealed that the demonic voice that comes from Regan’s mouth in the movie was not Blair’s, but Mercedes McCambridge’s, a veteran radio performer (and an Oscar-winner herself, for 1948’s All the King’s Men).
Reportedly McCambridge had been promised a credit on The Exorcist for her work, but when the movie arrived in the theaters, her name was omitted from it. Director William Friedkin later claimed that McCambridge had actually turned down a credit on the movie but later changed her mind. Either way, McCambridge’s name was later added retrospectively to the movie’s credits.
The controversy soured the buzz around Blair’s Oscar nomination, and the following year she lost out on the award—bizarrely, to an even younger performer. Oscar-winner Tatum O’Neal was just ten years old when she picked up the 1974 Support Actress award for her role in Paper Moon.