VJ Books presents William Peter Blatty!

William Peter Blatty was born in New York City, the son of Lebanese parents who came to America on a cattle boat, Mary (née Mouakad) and Peter Blatty, a cloth cutter in a garment factory.

 

Blatty attended Georgetown University and then The George Washington University for his Master's degree in English Literature.

 

He joined the United States Air Force where he ultimately became head of the Policy Branch of the USAF Psychological Warfare Division, about which he would write in his humorous autobiography, Which Way to Mecca, Jack?, in which his "principal achievement" was in formulating the principle that "a 500-pound sack of propaganda leaflets would, if dropped from an altitude of 13,000 feet and provided it scored a direct hit, would drive one North Korean soldier approximately four feet into the ground."

 

Blatty later joined the US Information Agency and worked as an editor stationed in Beirut, Lebanon. He had determined to return to Beirut after his three-month "home leave," but when a co-editor asked him in the kitchen of his Beirut apartment during the course of a farewell party, "Bill, what happened to the dream?" he changed his mind. The "dream" was a career in the world of acting, publishing and entertainment.

In 1960 Blatty published Which Way to Mecca, Jack?, which dealt humorously with both early life and his work at the United States Information Agency in Lebanon. He then published the comic novels John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1963), I, Billy Shakespeare (1965) and Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane (1966).

 

Blatty began a fruitful collaboration with director Blake Edwards, writing scripts for comedy films such as A Shot in the Dark (1964), What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966), Gunn (1967), and Darling Lili a musical starring Julie Andrews and Rock Hudson. (1970). Without Edwards, Blatty also worked on comedy screenplays as "Bill Blatty", two such credits being the Danny Kaye film The Man from the Diner's Club and the Warren Beatty-Leslie Caron film "Promise Her Anything." Others were "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!", and "The Great Bank Robbery."

 

Later Blatty resumed novel writing. Allegedly retiring to Lake Tahoe, Blatty wrote The Exorcist, a story about a twelve-year-old girl being possessed by a powerful demon that remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 57 straight weeks and at the Number One spot for 17 of them. It would eventually be translated by himself and director William Friedkin into one of the most famous and controversial mainstream horror movies of all time.