William Friedkin

William David Friedkin (/ˈfriːdkɪn/; August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s.^[1][2] Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

William Friedkin
Friedkin in 2017
Born	William David Friedkin (1935-08-29)August 29, 1935 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	August 7, 2023(2023-08-07) (aged 87) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	Senn High School
Occupations	Director producer screenwriter
Years active	1962–2023
Spouses	Jeanne Moreau ​ ​ (m. 1977; div. 1979)​ Lesley-Anne Down ​ ​ (m. 1982; div. 1985)​ Kelly Lange ​ ​ (m. 1987; div. 1990)​ Sherry Lansing ​ (m. 1991)​
Children	2
Signature

Friedkin's other films in the 1970s and 1980s include the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), considered a milestone of queer cinema; the originally deprecated, now lauded thriller Sorcerer (1977); the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978); the controversial thriller Cruising (1980);^[3][4] and the neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Although Friedkin's works suffered an overall commercial and critical decline in the late 1980s, his last three feature films, all based on plays, were positively received by critics: the psychological horror film Bug (2006), the crime film Killer Joe (2011), and the legal drama film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), released two months after his death. He also worked extensively as an opera director from 1998 until his death, and directed various television films and series episodes for television.

Early life and education

Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 29, 1935, the son of Rachael (née Green) and Louis Friedkin. His father was a semi-professional softball player, merchant seaman, and men's clothing salesman. His mother, whom Friedkin called "a saint," was a nurse.^[5][6] His parents were Jewish emigrants from Ukraine, in the Russian empire.^[7] His grandparents, parents, and other relatives fled Russia during a particularly violent anti-Jewish pogrom in 1903.^[8] Friedkin's father was somewhat uninterested in making money, and the family was generally lower middle class while he was growing up. According to film historian Peter Biskind, "Friedkin viewed his father with a mixture of affection and contempt for not making more of himself."^[5]

After attending public schools in Chicago, Friedkin enrolled at Senn High School, where he played basketball well enough to consider turning professional.^[9] He was not a serious student and barely received grades good enough to graduate,^[10] which he did at the age of 16.^[11] He said this was because of social promotion and not because he was bright.^[12]

Friedkin began going to movies as a teenager,^[9] and cited Citizen Kane as one of his key influences. Several sources claim that Friedkin saw this motion picture as a teenager,^[13] but Friedkin himself said that he did not see the film until 1960, when he was 25 years old. Only then, Friedkin said, did he become a true cineaste.^[14] Among the movies that he also saw as a teenager and young adult were Les Diaboliques, The Wages of Fear (which many consider he remade as Sorcerer), and Psycho (which he viewed repeatedly, like Citizen Kane). Televised documentaries such as 1960's Harvest of Shame were also important to his developing sense of cinema.^[9]

Friedkin began working in the mail room at WGN-TV immediately after high school.^[15] Within two years (at the age of 18),^[16] he started his directorial career doing live television shows and documentaries.^[17] His efforts included The People vs. Paul Crump (1962), which won an award ^[which?] at the San Francisco International Film Festival and contributed to the commutation of Crump's death sentence.^[16][18] Its success helped Friedkin get a job with producer David L. Wolper.^[16] He also made the football-themed documentary Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon (1965).^[19]

Career

1965–1979

As mentioned in his voice-over commentary on the DVD re-release of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Friedkin directed one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965, called "Off Season". Hitchcock admonished Friedkin for not wearing a tie while directing.^[20]

In 1965, Friedkin moved to Hollywood and two years later released his first feature film, Good Times starring Sonny and Cher. He has referred to the film as "unwatchable".^[21] Several other films followed: The Birthday Party, based on an unpublished screenplay by Harold Pinter, which he adapted from his own play; the musical comedy The Night They Raided Minsky's, starring Jason Robards and Britt Ekland; and the adaptation of Mart Crowley's play The Boys in the Band.^[22]

From left: Friedkin, Owen Roizman and William Peter Blatty on set of The Exorcist

His next film, The French Connection, was released to wide critical acclaim in 1971. Shot in a gritty style more suited for documentaries than Hollywood features, the film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.^[23] Friedkin's next film was 1973's The Exorcist, based on William Peter Blatty's best-selling novel, which revolutionized the horror genre and is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time. The Exorcist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won for Best Screenplay and Best Sound. Following these two pictures, Friedkin, along with Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich, was deemed one of the premier directors of New Hollywood. In 1973, the trio announced the formation of an independent production company at Paramount Pictures, The Directors Company. Whereas Coppola directed The Conversation and Bogdanovich, the Henry James adaptation, Daisy Miller, Friedkin abruptly left the company, which was soon closed by Paramount.^[24]

Friedkin's later movies did not achieve the same success. Sorcerer (1977), a $22 million American remake of the French classic The Wages of Fear, co-produced by both Universal and Paramount, starring Roy Scheider, was overshadowed by the blockbuster box-office success of Star Wars, which had been released exactly one week prior.^[23] Friedkin considered it his finest film, and was personally devastated by its financial and critical failure (as mentioned by Friedkin himself in the 1999 documentary series The Directors). Sorcerer was shortly followed by the crime-comedy The Brink's Job (1978), based on the real-life Great Brink's Robbery in Boston, Massachusetts, which was also unsuccessful at the box-office.^[25]

1980–1999

In 1980, Friedkin directed an adaptation of the Gerald Walker crime thriller Cruising, starring Al Pacino, which was protested during production and remains the subject of heated debate. It was critically assailed but performed moderately at the box office.^[26]

Friedkin had a heart attack on March 6, 1981, due to a genetic defect in his circumflex left coronary artery, and nearly died. He spent months in rehabilitation.^[27] His next picture was 1983's Deal of the Century, a satire about arms dealing starring Chevy Chase, Gregory Hines, and Sigourney Weaver.

In 1985, Friedkin directed the music video for Barbra Streisand's rendition of the West Side Story song "Somewhere",^[28] which she recorded for her twenty-fourth studio LP, The Broadway Album. He later appears as Streisand's interviewer (uncredited) on the television special, "Putting It Together: The Making of the Broadway Album".^[29]

The action/crime movie To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), starring William Petersen and Willem Dafoe, was a critical favorite and drew comparisons to Friedkin's own The French Connection (particularly for its car chase sequence), while his courtroom drama/thriller Rampage (1987) received a fairly positive review from Roger Ebert.^[30] He next directed the cult classic horror film The Guardian (1990) and the thriller Jade (1995), starring Linda Fiorentino. Though the latter received an unfavorable response from critics and audiences, he said it was one of the favorite films he directed.^[31]

2000–2023

Friedkin at the 2012 Deauville American Film Festival

In 2000, The Exorcist was re-released in theaters with extra footage and grossed $40 million in the U.S. alone. Friedkin directed the 2006 film Bug due to a positive experience watching the stage version in 2004. He was surprised to find that he was, metaphorically, on the same page as the playwright and felt that he could relate well to the story.^[32] The film won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Later, Friedkin directed an episode of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled "Cockroaches", which re-teamed him with To Live and Die in L.A. star William Petersen.^[33] He directed again for CSI's 200th episode, "Mascara".^[34]

In 2011, Friedkin directed Killer Joe, a black comedy written by Tracy Letts based on Letts' play, and starring Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon, and Thomas Haden Church. Killer Joe premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, prior to its North American debut at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. It opened in U.S. theaters in July 2012, to some favorable reviews from critics but did poorly at the box office, possibly because of its restrictive NC-17 rating. In April 2013, Friedkin published a memoir, The Friedkin Connection.^[35] He was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the 70th Venice International Film Festival in September.^[36] In 2017, Friedkin directed the documentary The Devil and Father Amorth about the ninth exorcism of a woman in the Italian village of Alatri.^[37] In August 2022, it was announced officially that Friedkin would be returning to film directing to helm an adaptation of the two-act play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial with Kiefer Sutherland starring as Lt. Commander Queeg.^[38] The film was completed before Friedkin's death, and debuted in September 2023 in the out-of-competition category at the Venice Film Festival.^[39]

Influences

Friedkin cited Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, and Akira Kurosawa as influences.^[40] Friedkin named Woody Allen as "the greatest living filmmaker".^[41]

In regard to influences of specific films on his films, Friedkin noted that The French Connection['s] documentary-like realism was the direct result of the influence of having seen Z, a French film by Costa-Gavras:

After I saw Z, I realized how I could shoot The French Connection. Because he shot Z like a documentary. It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next. And that is an induced technique. It looks like he happened upon the scene and captured what was going on as you do in a documentary. My first films were documentaries too. So I understood what he was doing but I never thought you could do that in a feature at that time until I saw Z.^[42]

Personal life

Friedkin with wife Sherry Lansing in 2012

Friedkin was married four times:

• Jeanne Moreau, married February 8, 1977, and divorced in 1979.^[43][44]
• Lesley-Anne Down, married in 1982 and divorced in 1985.^[45][46]
• Kelly Lange, married on June 7, 1987, and divorced in 1990.^[47][48]
• Sherry Lansing, married on July 6, 1991.^[49][50]

While filming The Boys in the Band in 1970, Friedkin began a relationship with Kitty Hawks, daughter of director Howard Hawks. It lasted two years, during which the couple announced their engagement, but the relationship ended about 1972.^[51] Friedkin began a four-year relationship with Australian dancer and choreographer Jennifer Nairn-Smith in 1972. Although they announced an engagement twice, they never married. They had a son, Cedric, on November 27, 1976.^[52][53] Friedkin and his second wife, Lesley-Anne Down, also had a son, Jack, born in 1982.^[46] Friedkin was raised Jewish, but called himself an agnostic later in life, although he said that he strongly believed in the teachings of Jesus Christ.^[54][55]

Death

Friedkin died from heart failure and pneumonia at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 7, 2023.^[6][56]

Work

Film

Narrative films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Ref(s)
1967	Good Times	Yes	Uncredited	No	[57]
1968	The Birthday Party	Yes	No	No	[58]
	The Night They Raided Minsky's	Yes	No	No	[57]
1970	The Boys in the Band	Yes	No	No	[57]
1971	The French Connection	Yes	Uncredited	No	[57]
1973	The Exorcist	Yes	No	No	[57]
1977	Sorcerer	Yes	Uncredited	Yes	[57]
1978	The Brink's Job	Yes	No	No	[57]
1980	Cruising	Yes	Yes	No	[57]
1983	Deal of the Century	Yes	No	No	[57]
1985	To Live and Die in L.A.	Yes	Yes	No	[57]
1987	Rampage	Yes	Yes	Yes	[57]
1990	The Guardian	Yes	Yes	No	[57]
1994	Blue Chips	Yes	No	No	[57]
1995	Jade	Yes	Uncredited	No	[57]
2000	Rules of Engagement	Yes	No	No	[57]
2003	The Hunted	Yes	No	No	[57]
2006	Bug	Yes	No	No	[57]
2011	Killer Joe	Yes	No	No	[57]
2023	The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial	Yes	Yes	No	[58]

Documentary films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Ref(s)
1962	The People vs. Paul Crump	Yes	No	Yes	[57]
1965	The Bold Men	Yes	No	No	[57]
	Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon	Yes	No	Yes	[59]
1966	The Thin Blue Line	Yes	Story	Yes	[57]
1975	Fritz Lang Interviewed by William Friedkin	Yes	No	No	[57]
1986	Putting It Together: The Making of the Broadway Album	Uncredited	No	No	[57]
2007	The Painter's Voice	Yes	No	No	[60]
2017	The Devil and Father Amorth	Yes	Yes	No	[58]

Music videos

Year	Title	Artist	Ref(s)
1984	"Self Control"	Laura Branigan	[61]
1985	"Somewhere"	Barbra Streisand	[62]
1998	"Ce que je sais"	Johnny Hallyday	[63]

Television

TV series

Year	Title	Episode	Ref(s)
1965	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour	"Off Season" (S3 E29)	[58]
1967	The Pickle Brothers	TV pilot (S1 E1)	[57]
1985	The Twilight Zone	"Nightcrawlers" (S1 E4c)	[64]
1992	Tales from the Crypt	"On a Deadman's Chest" (S4 E3)	[58]
2007	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	"Cockroaches" (S8 E9)	[58]
2009		"Mascara" (S9 E18)	[58]

TV movies

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Executive producer	Ref(s)
1986	C.A.T. Squad	Yes	No	Yes	[57]
1988	C.A.T. Squad: Python Wolf	Yes	Yes	Yes	[57]
1994	Jailbreakers	Yes	No	No	[57]
1997	12 Angry Men	Yes	No	No	[58]

Stage

Operas

Year	Title and Composer	Country / Opera House	Ref(s)
1998	Wozzeck, Alban Berg	Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre	[65]
2002	Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók	Los Angeles Opera	[66][67]
	Gianni Schicchi, Giacomo Puccini		[66][67]
2003	La damnation de Faust, Hector Berlioz		[68]
2004	Ariadne auf Naxos, Richard Strauss		[69][67]
2005	Samson and Delilah, Camille Saint-Saëns	June, New Israeli Opera October, Los Angeles Opera	[67]
	Aida, Giuseppe Verdi	Teatro Regio Torino	[70][71]
2006	Salome, Richard Strauss	Bavarian State Opera	[72]
	Das Gehege, Wolfgang Rihm		[73]
2008	Il tabarro, Giacomo Puccini	Los Angeles Opera	[74]
	Suor Angelica, Giacomo Puccini		[74]
2011	The Makropulos Case, Leoš Janáček	Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre	[75]
2012	The Tales of Hoffmann, Jacques Offenbach	Theater an der Wien	[72]
2015	Rigoletto, Giuseppe Verdi	Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre	[76]

Plays

Year	Title	Theatre	Principal Cast	Ref(s)
1981	Duet for One	Royale Theatre	Max von Sydow, Anne Bancroft	[77][78]

Unrealized projects

Year	Title and description	Ref(s)
1960s	Gunn	[79]
	Chastity	[80]
	They Shoot Horses, Don't They?	[81]
	The Murders on the Moor, a film adaptation of Emlyn Williams' novel Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and Its Detection	[82]
1970s	A film adaptation of Ross Thomas' novel The Brass Go-Between	[83]
	The Bunker Hill Boys, a film for The Directors Company	[84]
	Untitled sci-fi film with Peter Gabriel	[85][86]
	The Devil's Triangle, a UFO thriller starring Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen and Charlton Heston	[87]
	A Safe Darkness, a documentary about horror cinema featuring interviews with Fritz Lang and Roman Polanski	[88][82]
	Born on the Fourth of July starring Al Pacino as Ron Kovic	[89][90]
	A made-for-television film adaptation of Will Eisner's comic The Spirit written by Harlan Ellison	[91]
	A 10-hour television adaptation of Thomas Thompson's novel Blood and Money	[92][93]
	A film adaptation of Ron Hansen's novel Desperadoes written by Walon Green	[94]
1980s	A film adaptation of Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman's novel No One Here Gets Out Alive	[95]
	A film adaptation of Gay Talese's novel Thy Neighbor's Wife	[96]
	A film adaptation of Robin Cook's novel Brain	[97]
	That Championship Season	[98]
	A film adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel Legion	[99]
	A film adaptation of Frank De Felitta's novel Sea Trial starring Laura Branigan and Michael Nouri	[100][101]
	Judgement Day, a film written by Pete Hamill starring Gregory Peck	[102][103]
	A film adaptation of Don Pendleton's The Executioner series written by Hilary Henkin starring Sylvester Stallone and Cynthia Rothrock	[104][105]
	The Gambler, a film written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner starring Sylvester Stallone	[105]
	Desperate Hours	[106]
	Untitled biopic about 1950s songwriting duo Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller	[107][108]
1990s	Elsewhere, a ghost story with William Peter Blatty	[109][110]
	The Diary of Jack the Ripper, a biopic about James Maybrick written by Chris DeVore starring Anthony Hopkins	[111][112]
	A film adaptation of John Flood's novel Bag Men starring Michael Keaton	[113]
	A remake of the 1996 made-for-television film Truth or Dare written by William Davies	[114]
	Night Train, a biopic about boxer Sonny Liston written by Shane Salerno and Tyger Williams starring Ving Rhames	[115][116][117]
	Battle Grease, a film about the account of the Florence Maybrick murder trial	[118]
2000s	A film adaptation of Larry Collins' novel O Jerusalem! written by James Dearden	[119]
	Shooter starring Tommy Lee Jones	[116]
	Untitled biopic about Howard Hughes adapted from Richard Hack's biography Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters	[120]
	A film adaptation of Thomas Thompson's novel Serpentine	[121][122][123]
	Untitled biopic about Giacomo Puccini starring Plácido Domingo	[124]
	A film adaptation of Robert Silverberg's novel The Book of Skulls written by Jeff Davis and Terry Hayes	[125][123][126]
	The Man Who Kept Secrets, a biopic about Hollywood lawyer Sidney Korshak	[127]
	A film adaptation of Chris Greenhalgh's novel Coco and Igor starring Mads Mikkelsen and Marina Hands	[128][129]
2010s	A film adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel Dimiter	[130]
	Trapped, an indie thriller set in Europe starring Demián Bichir	[131][132][a]
	I Am Wrath starring Nicolas Cage	[134][135][136]
	Mae, a biopic about actress Mae West starring Natasha Lyonne and Bette Midler	[137][138][139]
	A TV pilot based on his film To Live and Die in L.A. written by Robert Moresco	[140][141][142]
	Untitled Killer Joe spinoff TV series	[140][143]
	A film adaptation of Don Winslow's novel The Winter of Frankie Machine	[144][145]

An LA Opera production of Wagner's Tannhäuser was announced by Friedkin, but a spokesperson revealed it had been delayed indefinitely.^[67] Friedkin had also been set to direct the premiere of an opera titled An Inconvenient Truth to debut in 2011,^[146] but he later departed from it when creative differences arose between him and the librettist.^[147] In 2013, it was reported that he would helm a stage production of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party (which he had already directed as a feature film in 1968), for Geffen Playhouse.^[148] A cast including Katie Amess, Frances Barber, Steven Berkoff, Tim Roth and Nick Ullett was assembled, but the production was soon postponed for an unknown reason, and never revived.^[149]

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result	Ref(s)
1972	Academy Award	Best Director	The French Connection	Won	[150]
	Directors Guild of America	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures		Won	[151]
	Golden Globes	Best Director		Won	[152]
1973	BAFTA Award	Best Direction		Nominated	[153]
1974	Academy Award	Best Director	The Exorcist	Nominated	[154]
	Directors Guild of America	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures		Nominated	[155]
	Golden Globes	Best Director		Won	[156]
1981	Razzie Awards	Worst Director	Cruising	Nominated	[157]
		Worst Screenplay		Nominated	[157]
1986	Cognac Festival du Film Policier	Audience Award	To Live and Die in L.A.	Won	[citation needed]
1988	Deauville Film Festival	Critics Award	Rampage	Nominated	[citation needed]
1991	Saturn Award	George Pal Memorial Award		Won	[citation needed]
1993		Best Director	Rampage	Nominated	[158]
1998	Directors Guild of America	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Specials	12 Angry Men	Nominated	[159]
	Primetime Emmy Awards	Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Movie		Nominated	[160]
1999	Saturn Award	President's Award		Won	[161]
	Empire Awards	Movie Masterpiece Award	The Exorcist	Won	[162]
2000	Palm Beach International Film Festival	Lifetime Achievement Award		Won	[163]
2006	Cannes Film Festival	FIPRESCI	Bug	Won	[164]
2007	Munich Film Festival	CineMerit Award		Won	[165]
	Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival	Time-Machine Honorary Award		Won	[166]
2009	Locarno International Film Festival	Leopard of Honor		Won	[167]
2011	Venice Film Festival	Golden Lion	Killer Joe	Nominated	[168]
		Golden Mouse		Won	[169]
2013	Belgian Film Critics Association	Grand Prix		Nominated	[170]
	Saturn Award	Best Director		Nominated	[171][172]
		Lifetime Award		Won	[173]
	Venice Film Festival	Special Lion for Lifetime Achievement		Won	[174]

Bibliography

• Friedkin, William. The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins, 2013. ISBN 978-0-06-177512-3
• Friedkin, William. Conversations at the American Film Institute With the Great Moviemakers: The Next Generation. George Stevens, Jr., ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. ISBN 978-0-307-27347-5