EXORCIST' PRIEST PRACTICES WHAT HE PREACHES
10/11/0 18:19 (New York)
With MOV-EXORCIST, LINDABLAIR
Film Feature
By JACK GARNER
Gannett News Service
The Rev. William J. O'Malley, who plays a priest in the film ``The
Exorcist,'' remembers his most challenging day as an actor.
As Father Dyer, the priest administering last rites following the
sacrificial death of Father Karras (Jason Miller) at the end of the
film, O'Malley had trouble while they were filming the scene.
Director William Friedkin ``said I was doing it by the numbers,''
O'Malley remembers.
''I didn't understand because take after take I was giving last
rites to my best friend,'' O'Malley says. Apparently the director
didn't see the emotion O'Malley was feeling.
''He said, 'Bill, do you trust me?' You always trust someone until
they ask you, so I said 'yes,' and he belted me right across the
mouth. Then we shot the scene.
''When you see my hand shaking as I bless him, it's no acting. I
was shaking.''
O'Malley was the most prominent of three real-life priests who had
roles in ''The Exorcist,'' Friedkin's re-issued classic tale of
demonic possession.
O'Malley was one of several Jesuits who were advisors for the film;
but he'd also long been interested in the theater, and eventually got
a substantial supporting role.
And now, with the new cut's extended ending, O'Malley gets a bit
more screen time in the epilogue with the late Lee J. Cobb. ''I think
this ending is much more upbeat,'' O'Malley says.
Perhaps typically, O'Malley has a spiritual rationale for the new
ending.
''The director at the time didn't have an understanding of the
resurrection, the idea of rebirth. This version is really the writer's
cut. (Writer William Peter Blatty is a Jesuit-trained Georgetown
graduate.)
''The new ending shows that life goes on. I previously looked glum
in the street at the end. Now I wave and smile.''
When ''The Exorcist'' first made waves - as a best-selling novel -
O'Malley was an English teacher and drama coach at a Jesuit High
School in Rochester, N.Y.
He was recruited to review the book at a local library program, and
he sent a copy of his review to Blatty, expecting nothing more to
happen.
''I got a letter back. He took exception because I complained that
the Jesuits in the book were too cutesy-flip. Later we met for dinner
in New York, and after I tried to impress him for 15 minutes, he
laughed, and said, 'You're being cutesy-flip.' ''
Later, when 'The Exorcist' was being filmed, Blatty brought
O'Malley and other Jesuits aboard as advisors - and as actors, hoping
to give the film authenticity.
''In my case, they were looking for a genial boob priest,''
O'Malley says with a self-deprecating laugh, ''and I walked into it
like a hand into a surgeon's glove.''
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Actually, O'Malley is quite good in the film. Then 42, he had the
craggy look of a Montgomery Clift.
In the days following the film's controversial release, O'Malley
had considerably more than 15 minutes of fame as the ''Exorcist
priest.''
''People were constantly calling me to exorcise their house, their
cat, their daughter. I told people, 'If you think I'm going to take
the devil out of your cat and jump out the window, you're crazy.' ''
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More than a quarter-century later, O'Malley is still proud of the
film, especially because ''it doesn't make evil attractive. Today we
have Teflon skins against evil. This film stripped the glamour from
evil.''
He remembers that most people he encountered in the Catholic Church
loved the film, ''especially the Conservatives,'' because of its
strong portrayal of evil, and the triumph of good.
But after the excitement of the film diminished, O'Malley went back
to teaching, directing pupils in school plays, and writing. (He's the
author of at least a dozen religion-oriented works, including the
just-published ''God: The Oldest Question.'')
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He left Rochester in 1986, after 22 years, and was eventually
assigned to the Bronx, N.Y., where he teaches at Fordham Prep and
Fordham University. He's directing his 89th play, a Fordham Prep
production of ''Beckett.''
Now 69, O'Malley has no thoughts of retiring. ''I'll keep plodding
onward. If I retired I'd go cuckoo.''
And he says the possibility of acting always remains. ''I was
acting when I broke the amniotic sac,'' says the Buffalo native.
''They say I screamed for three days.
''I wrote my first play when I was in fifth grade, after I wasn't
chosen for the official school play about Indians.''
In fact, O'Malley's love of performing is evident in ''The
Exorcist.'' As he plays the piano at a Georgetown party, he says a
line he personally contributed to Blatty's script. Consider it an
O'Malley motto:
''My idea of heaven is a solid white nightclub with me as the
headliner - and they LOVE ME!'' |
