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Director William Friedkin poses for portraits after interviews for his film Killer Joe in Venice, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 8, 2011.

Video. WATCH: Hollywood mourns The Exorcist director William Friedkin

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Friedkin was among a crop of influential young "New Hollywood" directors in the 1970s who fundamentally reshaped the US film industry, upsetting a long-established system in which powerful studio producers had reigned supreme.

Flowers are placed on William Friedkin’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star in Los Angeles, after the groundbreaking US director of "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection" died at the age of 87.

Alongside fellow auteurs such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, Friedkin exploded onto the Hollywood scene in 1971 with the gritty cop drama "The French Connection."

It won five Oscars, including for best director and best picture.

Friedkin followed that up with "The Exorcist," in 1973.

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