William Friedkin, Oscar-Winning Director of 'The Exorcist' and 'The French Connection,' Dead at 87

Friedkin also worked on 1977’s 'Sorcerer' and 1985’s 'To Live and Die in L.A.'

William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director behind such films as The French Connection and The Exorcist, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 87.

His wife, former producer and studio head Sherry Lansing, confirmed the news to The Hollywood Reporter.

Friedkin was part of a generation of talented filmmakers who made their mark in the 1970s by boldly disrupting the studio establishment with provocative, antiauthoritarian movies. He beat out several major industry players — among them, Stanley Kubrick and Peter Bogdanovich — to win the Best Director Oscar for The French Connection at the 1972 Academy Awards. Two years later, he went up against the likes of George Lucas, Bernardo Bertolucci and Ingmar Bergman with The Exorcist.

Born in Chicago in 1935, Friedkin kicked off his directing career by steering a 1965 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, as well as several telefilms. That same decade, he went on to work on such movies as Good Times (1967), The Birthday Party (1968) and The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968).

After directing The Boys in the Band in 1970, he dove into what would be a career highlight with 1971's The French Connection, an action-packed thriller starring Gene Hackman. The movie nabbed four other Oscars including Best Picture.

In 1973, Friedkin directed the iconic horror film The Exorcist, known for its infamous and chilling head-spinning scene. His other films include 1977’s Sorcerer, 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A., 2000's Rules of Engagement and 2006’s Bug.

Related: Lawrence Turman, Oscar-Nominated Producer of 'The Graduate,' Dead at 96

According to THR, Friedkin was keenly admired by a younger generation of directors. Shortly before Damien Chazelle became the youngest director to win an Oscar (for La La Land), he paid a visit to Friedkin's Bel-Air, California, home to meet the acclaimed filmmaker.

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Friedkin published a memoir in 2013 called The Friedkin Connection, which details his life and Hollywood career. The director wrote about growing up poor with his mother, a former nurse, and father, who he said jumped between jobs and "seemed to have no sense of purpose except day-to-day survival.”

He said his family at times subsisted on welfare. “I never knew it. All my friends lived the same way,” he wrote.

In the book, Friedkin also recounted how various opportunities in his path eventually led him to Hollywood. After graduating from high school in 1955, he got a job at local TV station WGN, where a writer and columnist named Fran Coughlin mentored him and opened his eyes to a wider world of art, movies and politicians. He worked his way up to become director of live television for the station.

Friedkin later discovered documentary filmmaking via a chance meeting with a local prison chaplain, who told him about a death row inmate awaiting execution whom he believed to be innocent. Friedkin turned the inmate's story into the TV documentary The People vs. Paul Crump. He then left home to move to Los Angeles to pursue a directing career.

The director is survived by his widow Lansing, a former studio chief at Paramount Pictures who was his fourth wife, and two sons.

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