WASHINGTON, January 14, 2017 – Screenwriter and novelist William Peter Blatty, who won widespread fame as the author of “The Exorcist” (1971), died Thursday morning, January 12 at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, the Washington, D.C. suburb where he lived. He was 89. William Friedkin, a longtime friend and colleague who directed iconic 1973 film adaptation…