Linda Blair Stepped Away From Acting for Horses
The Exorcist star, Linda Blair, earned several Oscar nominations, including for Best Actress, and she was considered a future Oscar winner who brought on her acting career. After that movie hit big, however, Blair went MIA from the acting world to indulge instead in her other passion, riding horses.
She recently, at 67, recalled how it was for a younger Blair to withdraw from acting to ride horses. The article in PEOPLE in July 1977 described how she was “really into acting” but didn’t want “a plastic life.” The main idea that came out of that story was not her being against acting, but that she could not live with all the artificiality of Hollywood.
The Connecticut environment with her dogs, her good guy, and her beautiful life is real, and nothing is fake here! She stated she was getting her foot back out of the Hollywood world!
Linda Competed as an Equestrian Under an Alias
At the tender age of twelve, Blair gave a stunning performance as Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, for which she was later on awarded the highly prestigious Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The movie was actually Blair’s breakout performance on the big screen.
She played the same role in the 1977 film; however, the movie did not fare as well as the original Exorcist, receiving mainly critical reviews from the film community. When she said, “I’ve worked for 12 years and deserve it,” to people at 18 years of age, it seemed clear enough that she didn’t want to appear in the public spotlight anymore.
During this break, Blair competed in horse shows using the name Martha Macdonald to get away from the press. She said to PEOPLE that she kept the time so early that the day would begin with getting up at 4 a.m. and braiding the manes and tails of her horses before a competition, only then getting dressed to go out.
She Balanced Acting With Her Love of Horses
“It is one of those occasions that happen once in a very, very long time,” she was saying back then about braid jobs. “Usually I give one to a good friend and still charge the usual rate of $10 for the mane and $5 for one tail. I am by no means a cheap person; it is just that horses are really, really costly stuff.”
Furthermore, the actress explained that she arranged for several of her horses to be shipped to California so she could herself look after her horses’ grooming schedule and feeding. “I had an 80-pound bag of feed in my car as they were underweight following their trip,” she was saying.
In her time as an equestrian, Blair was a competitor in big shows, including riding championships at Madison Square Garden on a national scale. The star, of course, also did the equestrian part of her famous role-playing. Then, she went further by launching the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which is an organization dedicated to the rescuing & adoption of stray (rescue) animals after rehabilitating them, the kind of work that goes a long way to making a difference for countless such animals. It would have been difficult enough to just rescue and rehome a few here and there. So the work being done, if it is carried out properly, can make the greatest difference to hundreds, perhaps even tens of thousands, of abandoned animals in a given area or country as a whole.
Linda Blair’s Property Searched Amid Kennel Investigation
Blair recently drew more attention when she shared that authorities conducted a search on her Southern California home as part of an actively ongoing investigation into a reported kennel operation on Friday, July 31.
As per an official communication released by the authorities to PEOPLE, Blair’s home was searched under an inspection warrant, which was one of the efforts of a cooperation between the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control and the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning. Officials stated, “We intend to check this property for buildings and structures that would indicate the presence of a kennel operation that reportedly consists of over 100 dogs.”
It was further disclosed that since the kennel facility’s permits had expired in 2023 and it was claimed that several times, county agencies had tried to reach out to the owner, who happens to be Blair, but there has been no feedback yet.
Linda Blair Addresses Property Inspection
The actress reacted to the news a day later by posting on her Instagram that there wasn’t anything but some paperwork and the new diagrams. Anyway, the lady says she knew I had been going through all kinds of things.
In the message accompanying the photos, Blair mentioned that the move will give her a chance to “be more educational and help more animals.” In a statement to TMZ, it was revealed that on the inspection day, Blair was there and very cooperative. Also, it was disclosed that none of the dogs were taken away.
