WHY BRING BACK “HURRICANE BILLY”? (Willian Friedkin book)

WHY BRING BACK “HURRICANE BILLY”?

By NAT SEGALOFF
Special to BearManor Media

©2026 Nat Segaloff

Lunching at the Algonquin round table in the 1920s, critic Alexander Woollcott, who had just  published a book, wistfully mused, “What is so rare as an Alexander Woollcott first edition?” Tired of his bravado, columnist Franklin Pierce Adams shot back, “An Alexander Woollcott second edition.”

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            In the publishing world, a second edition differs from a second printing in that the latter is merely an additional press run dictated by sales, whereas the former offers the author the chance to add new material, update the old, and, if necessary, correct errata. Among the books I have written, I have been blessed to have been able to produce four second editions (although one of them was actually a second edition disguised as the paperback). I am reminded of this because of BearManor Media’s re-publishing of my very first book, the thirty-five-year-old Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin.

            Published in 1990 by the William Morrow Company, Hurricane Billy is the biography of the man who made The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, and other noteworthy films. It was unusual in that it was written about a director in the middle of his career rather than with hindsight over an entire body of work. In that regard, it automatically begged for a second edition someday. Alas, that wasn’t in the cards; the publisher, William Morrow, bungle it to the point where I have joked that it was originally published as a remainder.

            Poor sales notwithstanding, Billy Friedkin and I remained friends. Over the years, however, I was irritated to see used copies of the book going for a dollar or two on the internet. I became even more irritated when, following Billy’s death on August 7, 2023, the price of those same used copies had shot up as high as $100. It reminded me of John Frankenheimer’s ironic appraisal of his 1966 film Seconds which, he said, “went from being a flop to being a classic without ever being a hit.”

            I considered producing a true second edition by updating it, but two obstacles prevented this. The first was that I lacked the time to research and write an additional 30,000-40,000 words to cover Billy’s years from 1990 to 2023. The second was that, in 2025, my colleague Thomas Clagett published a comprehensive update of his 1990 William Friedkin: Films of Aberration, Obsession, and Reality,[1] a scrupulous and accessible analysis of Billy’s complete filmography. Although Tom and I have become friends, when we started writing about Billy in the late 1980s neither of us knew that the other had been given Billy’s green light to do so. Both our books came out in 1990, and it’s either by coincidence or providence that we didn’t overlap: Tom wrote about the films, I wrote about the filmmaker.

            Which brings me to BearManor Media, with whom I have a long and profitable (for both of us) history. In 2020, BearManor publisher Ben Ohmart brought out the second edition of my Arthur Penn: American Director.[2] Originally published in 2011 by the University Press of Kentucky in 2011. I reacquired the rights from UPK (for whom I have since written three other books) and Ben happily agreed to bring out a second edition that covered Penn’s 2010 death and my report of a remarkable event that happened after the first book came out: it reconnected two disparate parts of the Penn family who only became aware of each other when they read the book.

            Because I prefer writing collaborative biographies – that is, I like to work with my subject and ask my own questions rather than rely on other people’s interviews – I have had to face the reality of time. Most of the people about whom I have written have died: Friedkin, Penn, Paul Mazursky, Stirling Silliphant, John Huston, and Harlan Ellison. So have many of those in their lives with whom I spoke about them. It got to the point where I felt like I should wear a black cowl and carry a scythe to interviews instead of a tape recorder.

            When the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA Press) published A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison in 2017, Harlan was very much alive. When he died in 2018, NESFA’s editor David Grubbs and I began work on a second edition that would chronicle Harlan’s death and the vast amount of comment that followed. Like the Penn, it was a true second edition.[3]

            The 2025 paperback of my 2023 The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear is a stealth second edition. Between the hardcover and the paperback, the film sequel Exorcist: Believer was released. Ordinarily, publishers don’t consider revisions or expansions for a paperback, but in this case it was an obvious opportunity to expand the brand, and Kensington/Citadel consented to an additional chapter and commentary.[4]

What The Exorcist Legacy didn’t cover because of publishing deadlines was Friedkin’s death. This became my mission when adding a foreword and afterword to BearManor’s publication of Hurricane Billy. The foreword relives my disappointment in the 1990 release of the first edition, and the afterword includes an intimate account of Billy’s death and legacy. I was fortunately to be able to speak with his widow, Sherry Lansing, who carries her own legend as the former CEO of Paramount Pictures as well as a record as a successful producer and, now, philanthropist. I believe that this is the first time she has publicly discussed Billy’s last days, which includes a surprising (to me) revelation of his spiritualism.

I am grateful to BearManor for recognizing the importance of bringing Hurricane Billy back into print, not only for the historical record but (let’s be honest here) to cash in on the public’s renewed interest in the book at well under $100. Designer Robbie Adkins did a magnificent job of creating a new cover and wrangling the imperfect conversion of the letterpress printing of the first edition (pre-computer) into digital text. Other acknowledgements are in the book.

All of us hope that those who read Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin 2.0 will come away with renewed admiration for his work and his unquiet life. As for me, I shall miss him forever. I hope Franklin Pierce Adams wouldn’t carp.

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