Exorcist Star Blasts Superman

Exorcist star, Linda Blair, has laid into Superman, Christopher Reeves for supporting charities which experiment on animals to further spinal injury research. Linda, who played the head-spinning, possessed kid, Regan, in the recently-rereleased cult movie fumed: "Just because it is Reeve who is injured, researchers are breaking thousands of animals' spines to find out how to get nerve regrowth." Her outburst, reported in today's Express, was made in her role of the new face of PETA - the animal rights group which instigated the striking supermodel anti-fur ad campaign. The 39-year-old actress said she'd love to find a cure for the paraplygic actor who was injured in a riding accident three years ago, but not, she said, at the expense of innocent animals. PETA is capitalising on Blair's current high profile - elevated by the renewed interest in The Exorcist, which has shot straight to the top of the film charts on its recent 25th anniversary re-release. Linda, still easily recognisable 25 years on, has put her face to a striking ad which bears the slogan 'Animal experiments make my head spin' - a play on the one of the film's most famous scenes. A TV ad - yet to be shown in the UK - features the shots of the actresses head spinning, intercuit with grisly footage of animals being tested on. Reeves has recently returned to movie-making - first as director of the latest Glenn Close vehicle, In The Gloaming and more recently, in the starring male role of a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window.