Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

William Peter Blatty

Writer/director

Born - 7 January 1928, New York City, USA
Died - 12 January 2017

Swarthily handsome, often moustachioed Hollywood writer whose book The Exorcist, for the 1973 film of which he wrote the screenplay, won him worldwide fame. After winning $10,000 on a TV quiz show in 1960, he had become a full-time writer, penning film comedies and other light entertainments from the early 1960s: The Man from the Diners' Club (1963), A Shot in the Dark (1964), John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965), Promise Her Anything (1966), Gunn (1967), The Great Bank Robbery (1968) and Darling Lili (1970). After The Exorcist changed the pattern of his career, he also wrote the sci-fi horror The Omega Man (1971) and later directed the films The Ninth Configuration/Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane (1979) and The Exorcist: Part III (1990). A director's cut of the latter, entitled Legion, appeared in 2016. After three failed marriages, he remained happily married to his fourth wife Julie for more than 30 years, up to his death from multiple myeloma.