10 Directors Who Drove Their Movie Stars To The Edge

William Friedkin immortalised William Peter Blatty's notorious horror novel The Exorcist on the silver screen in the early seventies, turning a young Linda Blair into a globally recognised star for all the wrong reasons.

Though The Exorcist was widely hailed as the scariest film of all time by cinemagoers, their fear surely pales into comparison to the horrors experienced by Blair -- then only 14 years old -- in making it.

Although the director and his young star remained friends for the duration of Friedkin's life, the filming of The Exorcist took its toll on Blair. The director continually pushed her to do more and more, the physicality of which (vomiting, thrashing around on the bed and 'levitating' in particular) mentally and physically pushed her over the line. She said of filming, "I had really had enough of the vomit... We kept at that equipment for so long. I was warm, stinky, smelly, thick, gooey. It was the one thing that just was like pushing me over the edge."

And that wasn't where the torture ended, as for the scenes where her character Regan thrashes around the bed, she was strapped to a harness that eventually fractured her back. The injury developed into scoliosis, and Blair was left with chronic pain for years to come.