Jason Miller (actor)

Jason Miller (April 22, 1939 – May 13, 2001) was a New York-based playwright and actor best known for his role in the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist.

Related Topics:
April 22 - 1939 - May 13 - 2001 - New York - Actor - 1973 - The Exorcist

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He is also the father of actor Jason Patric.

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His most recognized movie performance is his performance as Father Damien Karras, the troubled priest first called upon to treat Regan (played by Linda Blair), the young girl possessed by an ancient Sumerian demon in The Exorcist (a role for which he received an Academy Award-nomination).

Related Topics:
Linda Blair - The Exorcist - Academy Award

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Jason Miller's career primarily revolved around the stage. Friends knew Jason Miller as "Jack" or "Jackie." He was born John Anthony Miller in Long Island City, N.Y., the son of John A. and Mary Collins Miller, and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He later took the name Jason because he "always liked that story in mythology."

Related Topics:
Stage - Scranton, Pennsylvania

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When Miller, an only child, was still a baby the family moved to the predominantly Catholic anthracite mining town of Scranton. Scranton would remain home to Miller his whole life, as beloved as his Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Related Topics:
Notre Dame - Fighting Irish

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Miller was a standout basketball player at West Scranton's St. Patrick's High School, an experience he would draw upon for That Championship Season, a bleak and intense drama that used the occasion of the 20-year reunion of the Pennsylvania Champion high school basketball team at the home of their coach as a catalyst to explore the fleeting nature of fame, pride, and youth.

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"I'm writing in Championship about men going into their middle age with a sense of terror and defeat," Miller wrote for the dust jacket of the Antheum Press release of his play. "They're desperately holding on to their youth. The only thing that holds them together is the memory of when they were together.

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"The play is a rite of passage. Every man is looking for his father. The best I could do with these people was to admit their mystery...they'll be back next year for another reunion. They'll come back to live out their myths." His own myth began in May, 1972, at the New York Shakespeare Public Theatre when That Championship Season opened under the guiding hand of legendary Broadway producer Joseph Papp, who died in 1991.

Related Topics:
Broadway - Joseph Papp - 1991

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Two years prior the struggling stage actor and playwright -- who earned a master's degree in drama from Catholic University -- had two original works produced off-Broadway: The Circus Theatre, a series of one-act plays, and a full-length play called Nobody Hears a Broken Drum. In 1963 he married Linda Mae Gleason, daughter of actor and comedian Jackie Gleason. He worked a series of odd jobs while pursuing his career.

Related Topics:
Drama - Catholic University - Off-Broadway - Jackie Gleason

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In September, 1972, That Championship Season moved uptown to Broadway and was awarded the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Play and the Outer Circle Critics' Award.

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1973 saw Jason Miller's golden year, the championship season of his own. He was awarded the Tony for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. His film debut as troubled Jesuit priest Father Karras in the Warner Bros. release The Exorcist garnered Miller a Best Supporting Actor nomination. (He lost to the late John Houseman's performance in The Paper Chase). Miller also devoted considerable time to regional theater, and founded the Scranton Summer Theater Festival in Scranton, PA, where he was raised.

Related Topics:
Pulitzer Prize - Jesuit - John Houseman's - The Paper Chase

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In 2003, at the age of 62, the thrice-divorced Miller died of heart failure in Farley's Restaurant in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He had been rehearsing a revival of The Odd Couple for the Public Theatre of Pennsylvania in which he was to play the role of "Oscar Madison".

Related Topics:
2003 - Scranton, Pennsylvania - The Odd Couple - Public Theatre of Pennsylvania

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His first wife, Linda, was the daughter of screen legend Jackie Gleason, and their son, Jason Patric (full name: John Anthony Miller, Jr.), is also a film actor best known for his roles in the films Rush and The Lost Boys, and for his brief fling with superstar actress Julia Roberts. Another son, Joshua John Miller, is a former child actor now writing novels and screenplays.

Related Topics:
Jackie Gleason - Rush - The Lost Boys - Julia Roberts

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