The experience inspired Friedkin to make the 1980 film Cruising which, while based on a novel written a decade earlier, incorporated in its storyline the city's leather subculture, with which Bateson had identified.
He would later suggest that his appearance in The Exorcist was revenge on his father for punishing him as a child by making him stay home from Saturday matinées at the local movie theater and listen to opera on the radio instead.
He served in the Army in the early 1960s, where he began drinking heavily out of boredom while stationed in Germany, beginning a lifetime struggle with alcoholism.
The relationship was marked by heavy drinking, either in the form of cocktails at The Pierre and frequent parties at the couple's home, or weekends in the Fire Island enclave of Cherry Grove—both with food cooked by Bateson.
In the moments between the arterial puncture and the insertion of the catheter, blood freely issued from the tube mouth in rhythm with the patient's heartbeat.
[5] A few months later, Friedkin and his crew returned to shoot the scene, blocking off part of the hospital's radiology department for two successive weekends.
It was one of the first scenes shot during principal photography, in which the character of Regan (Linda Blair) is examined medically to see if any of the strange behavior (later found to be the result of demonic possession) she has been exhibiting can be scientifically explained.
[5] In the scene, it is Bateson who speaks most of the dialogue, demonstrating the calming bedside manner, another attribute that drew praise from those he worked alongside, that he had used with many actual child patients.
He can be seen in the background early, as Regan is wheeled into the room, helping put her on the table and attaching wires to her shoulders.
As the film shows Regan's face in tight closeup, alternating with takes of the procedure being finished, including her blood spurting into the air and staining her surgical gown as it had in the procedure Friedkin watched, Bateson's voice is heard off-camera, instructing her, warning her that the carotid puncture will hurt and reassuring her as she winces immediately afterward.
[5] Upon The Exorcist's release at the end of 1973, the scene became notorious as the one that audiences found most disturbing, despite its lack of any of the supernatural content that underlies the rest of the film's horror elements.
[7] Bateson sustained himself with odd jobs, such as doing light repair work and cleaning in apartments near where he now lived in Greenwich Village, and taking tickets at a theater showing pornographic films.
[7] On September 14, 1977, Addison Verrill, a reporter who covered the film industry for Variety, was found dead in his Horatio Street apartment.
Gay activist and journalist Arthur Bell, a friend of Verrill's, wrote an article about the case in The Village Voice setting it against the larger issue of how murders of gay men, several of which occurred yearly in the Village, were rarely taken seriously by police or reported on in the media since they were seen as the results of sexual encounters gone wrong.
[11] Bell ended his article by giving the phone number of the New York Police Department's homicide bureau and asking anyone with information to call them.
[12] In a story that ran on the Voice's front page, the caller recounted the events of the night that ended in Verrill's murder.
After three months of sobriety, he claimed, he had gone out to Badlands, a Christopher Street bar, in the early hours of September 14 where Verrill, whom he did not know, offered to buy him a beer, a proposition the caller accepted.
After incapacitating Verrill with a frying pan from his kitchen, the caller recounted, he stabbed the journalist with a knife, although he said he chose the wrong part of his chest.
[12] After the killing, the caller said, he took cash, totaling $57 ($287 in modern dollars)[13] and Verrill's Master Charge card, passport, and some clothes.
The caller had known about the stolen credit card, a detail police had not made public, and described a white substance found on the floor of Verrill's apartment as Crisco, a shortening frequently used at the time by gay men as a sexual lubricant.
Jail, he said, was helping him to again get sober; his biggest regret about being in custody was missing the new season of the Joffrey Ballet, at the time based in New York.
[7] At the time of Bateson's arrest, police had also been investigating a series of murders of gay men over the previous two years which they believed were committed by the same person due to similarities in the killings' modus operandi.
Friedkin, who recalled him from both his initial visit to NYUMC and the filming of the angiography for The Exorcist as a "nice young man" who stood out due to the earring and studded bracelet he wore, neither of which were common accessories for men at the time, read a long story about the case in the Daily News.
Bateson said that the prosecutors were offering him a deal whereby if he confessed to the bag murders and some other unsolved killings, he would receive a shortened sentence.
[5] Life had already imitated art, with an NYPD officer, Randy Jurgenson, going undercover in gay bars since he was similar in appearance to the victims of the bag killer.
He later added scenes set there to his film,[15] released in 1980 to mixed reviews after heavy protests by the city's gay community during production.
Bateson also denied having made the phone call to Bell, claiming his purported confession was just based on what he had read about the case in the Voice.
[4] At Bateson's sentencing a month later, prosecutor William Hoyt called him a "psychopath" and reiterated his belief that he was responsible for the six unsolved murders.