14 Actors Who Became Absolute Legends With Just One Movie

3. Linda Blair - Regan (The Exorcist)

Linda Blair is one of the horror genre's biggest icons. The Exorcist terrified audiences when first released, to the extent that several screenings in the USA had nuns standing outside them, sprinkling holy water on the punters and handling out leaflets with numbers to call if they had been traumatised by watching the film. Whatever you think of the film now, there's no denying the power of Blair's performance. Having become a child model at the age of six, Blair began her acting career on the short-lived soap Hidden Faces in the late-1960s. Her film career began with small parts in The Way We Live Now and The Sporting Club. She auditioned for Regan at the behest of her mother rather than her agent, and beat over 600 other actresses to the role. The part almost went to Denise Nickerson, who played Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, but her parents found the material too troubling and pulled her out. Blair's performance is on the most terrifying aspects of The Exorcist, drawing us in with her sweetness and innocence in the early scenes before freaking us out as the demon drains and corrupts her. Even without all the green puke and Dick Smith's amazing make-up, she has great screen presence and deserved to transition into a successful career as an adult. In the right hands, she could have had the same career trajectory as Sigourney Weaver several years later. What She Did Next: She appeared in the sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic after landing several roles in TV movies. Following a charge of drug possession, she struggled to get hired and spent most of the 1980s in low-budget exploitation films. She subsequently sent up her most famous role in Repossessed and had a cameo in Scream.