William Peter Blatty was born on January 7,1928, in New York City, New York. He graduated from Georgetown's College of Arts and Sciences with a Bachelors in English on 1950. He is most known for writing and filming his world-renowned horror film, The Exorcist. He passed away in 2017.
Before Georgetown
Blatty was the youngest child of a Lebanese Catholic immigrant family. He was raised by a single mother in immense poverty and was evicted a total of 27 times. His mother, Mary, was deeply religious and sent Blatty to a Catholic grammar school, St. Stephen's in New York, and Brooklyn Preparatory, an all-male Jesuit high school.1 Blatty graduated at the top of his class and in 1946, won a full scholarship to Georgetown University.
Time at Georgetown
Blatty studied English in the College of Arts and Sciences. During his time at Georgetown, Blatty was actively involved in The Georgetown Journal, as well as Mask and Bauble, Georgetown's student theatre group, where he would later serve as president.2
Drawing on his experience in Mask and Bauble, Blatty was featured in a Hoya article as a contestant in the newspaper's unofficial contest to discover Georgetown students' most interesting summer jobs for his job as a Dramatic Counselor at an all-girls' camp in northern Vermont in the summer of 1948. 3
Blatty's prolific career in writing and filming comedies was foreshadowed by his infamous prank at Villanova University. At a highly anticipated Georgetown-Villanova football game, Blatty disguised himself as a priest and stole Villanova's mascot.
In 1949, Blatty read a newspaper account of an exorcism of a fourteen-year-old boy in Mount Rainier, Maryland. Blatty who had once considered being a Jesuit, was fascinated by the exorcisms conducted by Jesuit priests. In a theology class at Georgetown taught by Father Eugene Gallagher, S.J., Blatty further learned about exorcisms. His strong Catholic upbringing pushed him to grapple with theological themes of suffering, transcendence, and inexplicable nature of spiritual beings.
In February of 1950, Blatty, a senior at Georgetown, married Margaret Rigard at Holy Trinity Church. The mass was celebrated by Father Leo. Monaghan, S.J., who was the former moderator of Mask and Bauble.
After graduating from Georgetown, Blatty went on to complete his M.A. in English Literature at George Washington University. In 1951, a year after he got married, Blatty entered the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Beirut, Lebanon. After returning to the U.S. he drifted between jobs, including working as the director of publicity at the University of Southern California. In 1959, Blatty made his debut with the publication of Which Way to Mecca, Jack? (1959), about his time stationed in the Middle East. He also pursued a career in film-making by working with the director Blake Edwards on the "Pink Panther" series and other films such as A Shot in the Dark (1964) and What Did You Do in the war (1966).
The Exorcist
Blatty originally pitched the idea for the Exorcist to an editor at New Year's Eve party. The story revolved around a small girl who was possessed by the devil and turned into a horrifying monster. The girl, Regan MacNeil who lived in Georgetown, later receives an exorcism from Father Merrin and Father Damien Karras. The book was based on an exorcism that took place in Cottage City, Maryland in 1949. After ten months of frantically writing to meet deadlines, Blatty published the book in 1971, without much success. This all changed when Blatty filled in for a last-minute replacement on "The Dick Cavett Show" and advertised his book. Overnight, his book became a best-seller on the New York Times and stayed there for a year, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide.
In 1973, the film-adaptation of the Exorcist was released and gained enormous success, grossing around $165 million worldwide. The release of the movie generated a cultural frenzy, with reports of strange behavior, supernatural incidents, and medical abnormalities reported after seeing the movie. Rev. Thomas M. King, a Georgetown professor who blessed the film crew and sets during the Exorcist's production commented on this hysteria, "The whole recognition of evil can have a kooky effect on people...It feeds on itself, that fascination with evil."4
Some of the most famous scenes from the movie were shot on the "Exorcist Stairs" just a few blocks from the University's main campus. Other shots include Dahlgren Chapel, where Blatty himself went to mass everyday during his time at Georgetown, as well as Healy Hall. The setting of Georgetown has made the Exorcist an iconic Halloween tradition on the Hilltop.
Blatty's screenplay won an Academy Award. Sequels of the Exorcist were released in 1977 and 1983. Blatty continued to win multiple awards, including the Golden Globes in 1973 and 1980, Science Fiction and Horror award in 1980 and the Stoker Award for Lifetime achievement in 1998. In 1978, he received the John Carroll Award, the highest award for Georgetown alumni.
Blatty's Later Life
Blatty did not want to be confined to the genre of horror and continued to write and produce other films, especially comedy. Blatty wrote The Ninth Configuration (1978) which also gained success in both the novel and film adaptation. Further on along his life, Blatty wrote the novels Elsewhere, Dimiter, and Crazy (2010). He also wrote an autobiography titled, I'll Tell Them I Remember You (1974)
In 2003, Blatty returned to his alma mater in an event sponsored by the GU Lecture Fund. In that event, Blatty told a crowd in ICC Auditorium that "Terror has never been my day job."5
In 2006, Blatty's 19-year-old son passed away, which inspired Blatty to write a memoir, Finding Peter in 2015.
In 2013, Blatty filed a canon law petition with the Vatican claiming that Georgetown University no longer could be called a Catholic institution for engaging in activities he thought went against teachings of the Catholic Church, including inviting pro-abortion speakers to campus. He garnered over 2,000 signatures from current students, alumni, parents, and religious figures in this petition.
Blatty passed away on January 12, 2017, in Bethesda, Maryland.
- 1Liukkonen, Petri. "William Peter Blatty (1928-2017)." Authors Calendar. http://authorscalendar.info/blatty.htm
- 2Tu, Emily. "Blatty Remembered for Contributions to Horror Genre, Georgetown." The Hoya. Jan 20, 2017. https://thehoya.com/blatty-remembered-for-contributions-to-horror-genre-georgetown/
- 3"Blatty has job at girls' summer camp as dramatic prof." The Hoya. May 14, 1948. p.7
- 4Broadway, Bill. "Exorcise receives renewed attention." The Washington Post, Oct 21, 2000. p. 9
- 5Al-Arian, Laila. "Georgetown alum William Peter Blatty discusses supernatural phenomena." The Hoya. Jan 17, 2003.
