From the age of six, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, both as a model and in motion pictures, when out of 600 applicants she got picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist (1973). Linda seemed to be set to take the Academy Award for that role, but when it leaked how little of the possessed child she actually had been (dubbed voice by Mercedes McCambridge and liberal use of a dummy) that dream broke, and with that disappointment probably came the first blow to what should have been a sure road to stardom.

Credits include: Planet of the Apes, A Streetcar Named Desire, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, A Matter of Life and Death and Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Credits include: The Dirty Dozen, Airplane II: The Sequel, Starman, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and 3:10 to Yuma

Credits include: Prime Cut, Swan Song, Humongous, Ruby and 'Gator Bait

Credits include: The Wild One, The Desperate Hours, Junior Bonner, Carrie and The Mad Magician

Credits include: Judge Dredd, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Sex and Breakfast, The Ultimate Warrior and The Glass Menagerie

Credits include: Jeremiah Johnson, Calamity Jane, Cinderella Liberty, Born Innocent and Phantom of the Rue Morgue

Credits include: Chilly Scenes of Winter and Born Innocent

Credits include: Bonanza, The Reivers, Born Innocent, Menace on the Mountain and Texas Detour

Credits include: Conrack, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Born Innocent, Roots, Part II and Sally Hemings: An American Scandal

Credits include: Born Innocent, Fer-de-Lance and Cade's County