CNN —William Friedkin, director of iconic 1970s films including “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” has died, his wife Sherry Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures, told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday.
Friedkin won the Oscar for best director for “French Connection” in 1972, going on to be nominated for the same trophy again two years later for occult horror “Exorcist,” the genre-defying hit that racked up ten nominations and two statuettes.
Curiously, Friedkin once told Cinephilia Beyond that his original intention wasn’t even to make a horror film with “The Exorcist.”“I recognize that audiences for generations have considered it a horror film,” he observed.
“I won’t deny that, but when I set out to make it, the writer and I never had any concept of it as a horror film.
He is survived by his wife, along with two sons, Jackson and Cedric Friedkin.
Persons:
William Friedkin, ”, Sherry Lansing, Friedkin, Oscar, Friedkin’s, —, Al Pacino, Willem Dafoe, Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr, Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L, Jackson, Jade, David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Amort, Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Clarke, Jake Lacy, William Peter Blatty –, Ellen Burstyn, Cinephilia, Exorcist’s, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Mike Nichols, ’ ” Friedkin, Jeanne Moreau, Lesley, Anne Down, Kelly Lange, Lansing, Cedric Friedkin
Organizations:
CNN, Paramount Pictures, Hollywood, NPR
Locations:
L.A, ”, French, British