Imagine a world where Jamie Lee Curtis wasn't known for 1978's Halloween. It almost doesn't seem possible, considering she was in seven movies from the franchise.
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Before her big-screen debut in John Carpenter's Halloween, there was actually another horror movie classic that almost featured a very young Jamie Lee, but her mother wasn't having it.
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On a recent episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the Freaky Friday star revealed that when she was a preteen, she was asked to audition for the 1970s horror classic The Exorcist by producer Ray Stark.
According to Jamie, Ray Stark, a producer of The Exorcist, was a close friend of her mother, the actor Janet Leigh.
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"He called my mom and said, 'Hey, I'm producing the movie of the book The Exorcist. Will you let Jamie audition for it?'" she told Drew. "At the time I was probably 12 and, like, cute and kind of sassy and I had some personality and I'm sure he saw me at a party and was like, 'Oh, she'd be funny.'"
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Considering Janet was a famous scream queen in her own right, with her award-winning turn in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, it would make perfect sense for her daughter to follow suit, but she told the producer, "no."
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Jamie said her mother's reason for declining the offer was "My mom really wanted me to have, thank God, a childhood."
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The role of Regan MacNeil instead went to Linda Blair, who was only 14 years old. Apparently, certain conditions on the set led to real-life injuries for Linda, and the following press for the film opened the door for invasive and misleading questions about her health.
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Linda earned a nomination at the 1974 Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and would reprise her role in the 2023 sequel, The Exorcist: Believer.
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Five years after The Exorcist, Jamie would follow in her mother's footsteps as a scream queen, portraying Laurie Strode in 1978's Halloween when she was 19 years old. She would go on to star in other horror films, including The Fog, Prom Night, and Terror Train.
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So, I guess it's fair to say thanks to Psycho's Marion Crane, we got an iconic Laurie and Regan. Who is your favorite scream queen? Share in the comments.