1973 article by Fr. Bill O’Malley

Copyright
The Catholic Digest &
The Jesuit
39 E. Rockford St., NY city 10028. Winter, 1973. Reprinted with permission.
Condensed from The Jesuit.

(Father O’Malley teaches at McQuaid High School, Rochester, NY.)

I almost refused to review the book that was going to make me the first American priest ever to have a featured role in a movie. In the summer of 1971, I was aksed to review The Exorcist for the Rochester Public Library.

While I was clattering the final draft through the typewriter, an idea crept into my head. Father Bermingham, our New York Provincial for formation, had taught the author, Bill Blatty, at Brooklyn Prep and still corresponded with him. Why not send the review off to the author? He probably was too busy to write to everyone who wrote him, but the carbon was not doing anybody any good in a drawer. So I sent it.

Two weeks later a reply came from Blatty himself. Not the expected post card with “Got your review. Thanks,” but a three and a half page letter. It was the first of an endless number of kindesses I would receive from this good man.

Bill said that he had gone to Brooklyn Prep and Georgetown on scholarships and had written the novel as a thank-you to the Jesuits for his education. He was a bit prickled, though, at my dismissal of Father Joe Dyer, the hero’s best friend, as “a bit too cutesy-flip.”

Grateful, I wrote thanking him for his suggestions and defending my allegations against Joe Dyer. After all, I’ve known a lot of Jesuit conversation.

Sometime in September, a letter came back saying Bill would be in New York on the first of October; why not come down and have dinner with him? Why not, indeed? Jesuits may be a bit unpredictable, bu we rarely jet off 400 miles just to have dinner. Well, why not ask the superior anyway? Who could have guessed it? He said yes.

We had dinner from 7 in the evening until 4 in the morning. We solved all the problems of this world and the next, laughed, gossiped, and snowed one another. But at one moment, I suddenly looked at Bill and said, “You know what I have been for the past 15 minutes?”

“Yeah,” he grinned, “cutesy-flip.”

It had been fun, but that, I thought, was that. A few days later a letter arrived from Bill Blatty: “How would you like a part in a movie? I think you would make a good Joe Dyer. No kidding.”

I thought about it. For maybe 30 seconds. Then I wrote a letter to the provincial asking his permission.

Within two weeks I had a letter from Father Joe Browne giving his okay. (I’m told he rolled his eyes toward heaven and sighed.) And I was setting off down the Yellow Brick Road to the silver screen.

The filming was all to be finished by September, so I would not miss any class. But delays moved the shooting schedule back and back. The only real “work” I did was fly down to New York three of four times to rehearse a scene in the office of the director, Billy Friedkin. And at the end of August I got to bless the cast and crew as they began shooting in a hospital on Welfare Island.

Then the call came, and I felt like a kid from the chorus pulled in to replace the star. We were to film the scenen where I have stolen scotch from the rector of Georgetown to calm Damien Karras, who is distraught over his mother’s death.

Now I have worked only on the stage, where an actor as to blow up a reaction by five times to get is across the footlights. Afte one take, Billy came over, cupped my face in his hand and said, “Babe, about 150% down.” We ran it a few more times without camera, until I was talking almost more quietly than I would have in real life. But at last your less than humble servant was on film.

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End Part One