In pictures: The glorious Hollywood career of William Friedkin

William Friedkin, the Oscar-winning director who brought chilling intensity to two generational touchstones of the 1970s, the gritty police drama 'The French Connection' and the demonic-possession freakout 'The Exorcist', died on August 7 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87. He had pneumonia, according to a statement from Creative Artists Agency, which represents him and his wife, Sherry Lansing, a former chief of Paramount studios.

Friedkin - nicknamed Hurricane Billy for his turbulent personality and raging ambition - emerged from the Chicago slums determined to get noticed. He entered show business at age 16 as a TV mailroom gofer. He was soon directing programmes, and he grabbed the attention of producers with a documentary that helped save the life of a Black death-row inmate in Illinois. In a chequered filmmaking career spanning 50 years, Friedkin was regarded as both a cinematic pacesetter, responsible for two box-office juggernauts, and a director who struggled to replicate the commercial and critical highs of his heyday in the early 1970s.

Friedkin's commercial breakout was 'The French Connection' (1971), a low-budget crime drama starring the relatively unknown Gene Hackman as a New York police detective on the trail of an illegal substance shipment. Determined to enhance the routine police procedural he’d been handed, Friedkin executed one of the most harrowing chase sequences ever filmed as Hackman’s character, driving through actual Brooklyn traffic, chases a suspect aboard an elevated subway train. The movie, which the American Film Institute ranks among the top 100 movies, unexpectedly won five Oscars, including for best picture, best director and best actor (awarded to Hackman).

Friedkin followed with 'The Exorcist' (1973), which broke ground in the horror genre with (literally) head-spinning sacrilege and bloodcurdling violence perpetrated against an innocent child and all who attempt to help her. Film critic Roger Ebert admiringly called it “exploitation of the most fearsome resources of the cinema”. With a cast headed by Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow and newcomer Linda Blair as the possessed girl, it became one of the highest-earning movies of all time and the first horror drama to earn an Academy Award nomination for best picture. Friedkin also received a nomination for his directing.

But his rapid ascent to the top of Hollywood’s directing ranks was followed by a succession of high-profile flops, including the action film 'Sorcerer' (1977) and the murder mystery 'Cruising' (1980). Friedkin’s diminished reputation was not helped, he conceded, by his bridge-burning attitude toward studio executives and his ruthless treatment of people on set. He said he would do anything - he would belittle or even slap an actor - to achieve greater urgency on-screen. He recalled slapping a real priest who appeared in 'The Exorcist' and who failed to come through with convincing tears.

His actions, he explained in his autobiography, were motivated by a drive for artistry and status. “I embody arrogance, insecurity and ambition that spur me on as they hold me back,” he wrote. “My character flaws remain for the most part unhealed. There’s no point in saying I’ll work on them.” Friedkin often recounted feeling humiliated as a newcomer to Hollywood in 1965. He was hired to direct an episode of the TV series 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour' and Hitchcock, whom he idolised, arrived on the set, criticised him for not wearing a tie and walked away.

A few years later, Friedkin won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America for 'The French Connection' and made a point of seeking out Hitchcock in the audience. “I had a rented tux and one of those snap-on bow ties,” he recalled. “I snapped my tie at him and said, ‘How do you like the tie now, Hitch?’ He just stared at me. He didn’t remember at all, but of course I did.”

William Friedkin, seen here with his wife Sherry Lansing (left) and actress Linda Blair (right), was born in Chicago on August 29, 1935, to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His father, a clothing salesman, struggled to make a living. His mother, an operating-room nurse, lost an eye in a freak accident involving a tray of surgical instruments. Friedkin rarely cracked a book in school and mostly excelled at basketball and shoplifting. (“My only distinction,” he wrote, “was as the high school’s bad boy.”)

He was in his 20s when, after visiting an art house cinema, he became fascinated by Orson Welles and exciting European filmmakers including Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard and Henri-Georges Clouzot. Friedkin, seen here with Francis Ford Coppola of 'The Godfather' fame, made a bleakly stylish feature-length documentary, 'The People vs. Paul Crump' (1962), about an Illinois man charged with killing a security guard during a botched armed robbery.

His other credits include the Chevy Chase arms-dealing comedy misfire 'Deal of the Century' (1983); the action film 'To Live and Die in L.A.' (1985), which featured a memorable backward-on-the-freeway car chase; and the Joe Eszterhas-penned thriller 'Jade' (1995), which reportedly cost $50 million and brought in less than $10 million. He also adapted Tracy Letts’s stage shockers 'Bug' (2006) and 'Killer Joe' (2011). Friedkin’s last movie, 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial', with a script by novelist Herman Wouk, is scheduled to premiere at the Venice Film Festival this summer.

His marriages to actresses Jeanne Moreau and Lesley-Anne Down and TV news anchor Kelly Lange ended in divorce. In addition to Lansing, whom he married in 1991, survivors include a son, Cedric, from a relationship with Australian dancer Jennifer Nairn-Smith; and a son from his second marriage, Jack. In addition to his films, Friedkin had worked on music videos and staged operas. “Every one of my films, plays and operas has been marked by conflict, sometimes vindictive,” he wrote. “The common denominator is me, so what does that tell you?”