David Lynch, Legendary Filmmaker, Dead at 78
David Lynch, the legendary director, writer, and artist behind totemic American works like Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, has died at the age of 78. On the afternoon of January 16, his family posted a statement to his official Facebook page announcing his death, writing, “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”
Born in Missoula, Montana, in 1946, Lynch began his career as a visual artist in Philadelphia in the 1960s, which is where he met his first wife, Peggy Reavey, and had his first child, filmmaker Jennifer Lynch. At the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Lynch combined his painting with animation and filmmaking techniques, leading to a series of early short, experimental films, which in turn led to the development of his first film, Eraserhead, which has become a cult classic and midnight-movie staple since its release in 1977. It was an early example of his unique stamp as a filmmaker, evoking the sort of uniquely haunting dream logic, Surrealism, and strange humor that would go on to make the his very name an adjective.
Off of the underground success of Eraserhaed, Lynch made The Elephant Man, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. This was the first of three Best Director Oscar nominations that Lynch would garner in his lifetime (the others were for Blue Velvet in 1987 and Mulholland Drive in 2002). In the 2022 Sight & Sound critics’ poll, Mulholland Drive was named one of the top-ten films ever made.
Beyond film, Lynch had a celebrated career in television, working with Mark Frost to co-create the beloved ABC series Twin Peaks in 1990, which he followed in 2017 with his final major work, the critically acclaimed and medium-defying Showtime series Twin Peaks: The Return. He acted in both iterations of the series, as well as in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, playing the lovable, hard-of-hearing FBI agent Gordon Cole.
In an interview with Sight & Sound in 2024, Lynch revealed that he could no longer work on a film set, as he was suffering from emphysema, but that didn’t mean that he would stop directing entirely. “I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,” he said. On January 9, 2025, Lynch was evacuated from his home due to the L.A. wildfires. At the time, producer Sabrina Sutherland confirmed that he was safe. Lynch was married four times and is survived by his four children.
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