William Friedkin, director of ‘The Exorcist,’ ead at 87

William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director of 1970s cinematic classics “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection,” has died in Los Angeles. He was 87.

The legendary filmmaker’s passing was confirmed by his wife, former producer and Paramount Pictures studio head Sherry Lansing.

Friedkin also helmed the groundbreaking gay-themed 1970 drama “The Boys in the Band,” as well as boundary-pushing films such as “Sorcerer” (1977), “Cruising” (1980), “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985), “Rules of Engagement” (2000), “Bug” (2006) and “Killer Joe” (2011) among others.

Although his box office and critical acclaim was often hit or miss, his reputation as an auteur was undisputed in the industry.

“I never considered myself the great American anything. Not then and not now. I consider myself just another member of the crew, the highest paid member of the crew,” he once told The Los Angeles Times. “Winning the Academy Award [and the Directors’ Guild Award for 1971’s “The French Connection”] was an enormous honor. But I thought I had won it prematurely, that I hadn’t paid enough dues at that point.”

His most recent production is a remake of the Herman Wouk stage and screen drama “The Caine Mutiny-Court Martial,” which stars Kiefer Sutherland and has been accepted into the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

He was part of the acclaimed generation of ’70s filmmakers who virtually reinvented the traditional Hollywood studio system with rule-breaking, genre-defying projects that challenged the studio status quo.

Several of its members — which included Francis Ford Coppola and the late Peter Bogdanovich — joined forces to create The Directors Company in an attempt to retain their individualistic independence, but infighting quickly led to its dissolution, not long after they had collectively turned down the George Lucas blockbuster “Star Wars” in 1976, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Chicago on Aug. 29, 1935, Friedkin was the only child of a nurse he declared a “saint” and an often unemployed father who he once said “seemed to have no sense of purpose except day-to-day survival.” Both of his parents hailed from Jewish families that had fled Ukraine in the early 20th century.

Friedkin grew up poor on welfare — he said his dad never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent — but Friedkin claimed he “never knew it. All my friends lived the same way … The guys I hung with, like me, had no moral compass,” he wrote in his memoir “The Friedkin Connection” in 2014. “I literally didn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

Friedkin began his directorial career in television with a 1965 episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and a few TV movies. His big screen career launched with a snow burn with the late 1960s B-movies such as “Good Times” (1967), “The Birthday Party” (1968) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968).

As for the creation of the seminal Big Apple-set film that one him the Oscar, Friedkin spoke to The Post on the Gene Hackan film’s 50th anniversary in 2021.

“[I] created my own version of New York,” Friedkin told The Post of his silver screen setting for the true crime story of two NYPD narcotics detectives who, in 1961, busted a prolific heroin-smuggling ring.

Yes, his movie captured the “purgatorial” early ‘70s reality of the Big Apple as it rotted into bankruptcy, but Friedkin was hesitant to call “The French Connection” a period piece. Too much of the movie’s magic was manifested not by the era but his own mad vision and the fact that “I was blessed, as I was in ‘The Exorcist,’ with a perfect cast.”

He continued, “I was like Captain Ahab pursuing the whale. [I had] a supreme confidence, a kind of sleepwalker’s assurance,” Friedkin said, reflecting on his helming halcyon days. “As successful as the film was, I wouldn’t do that now. I had put people’s lives in danger.” 

The iconoclastic filmmaker’s career declined as the decades wore on — but his rebel spirit remained strong. He eventually blamed his own ego for his fall from grace but had no bitterness about it, THR reported.

“I haven’t made my ‘Citizen Kane,’” he admitted in his autobiography, “but there’s more work to do. I don’t know how much, but I’m loving it.”

He is survived by his wife Sherry Lansing, 79, whom he married in 1991, and two sons: Jack Friedkin and film editor Cedric Nairn-Smith. He was previsional married to actresses Jeanne Moreau and Lesley-Anne Down and newscaster Kelly Lange.