After a legendary career that made him one of the titans of modern cinema, David Lynch has passed away at age 78. His death comes just four days before his 79th birthday on January 20. Variety confirmed the news after Lynch’s family posted a message about the director’s passing on his official Facebook page.
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Here’s the Facebook post from Lynch’s family in its entirety: “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. 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.”
Lynch’s death comes on the heels of his confirmation last summer that emphysema had compromised his filmmaking. “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not,” Lynch told Sight & Sound last August. “It would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold.” Lynch remained hopeful at the time he could return to his career but hinted, given his health, that he would have to work remotely to do so. “I would do it remotely if it comes to it,” he continued. “I wouldn’t like that so much.”
Known for his dark, surrealistic, and genre-bending films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive,” Lynch’s movie career began with short animated and live-action films before his masterful 1977 feature debut “Eraserhead.” The film’s uncompromising vision soon attracted Hollywood. Before long, Mel Brooks’ production company hired him to helm “The Elephant Man,” which won him critical acclaim and nabbed eight Academy Awards, including Best Director for Lynch. But Lynch’s swift ascent in Tinsel Town wavered after the critical and commercial failure of his 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel “Dune.”
Lynch quickly rebounded, however, with 1986’s “Blue Velvet,” starring “Dune” actor Kyle MacLachlan, and 1990’s “Wild At Heart.” While the former remains a high-water mark in Lynch’s career, “Wild At Heart” won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes and cemented his stature in the years to come. 1990 also saw the debut of “Twin Peaks,” a TV series Lynch co-created with Mark Frost. Centered around the investigation of the murder of a popular high school girl in a small town in Washington, the ABC series became a sensation despite lasting only two seasons. The show and its 1992 feature-length prequel “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” still have a devoted cult following over thirty years after their respective premieres.
Lynch’s late period saw the filmmaker continue to flex his talents in 1997’s ‘Lost Highway,” 2001’s “Mulholland Drive,” and 2006’s “Inland Empire.” Next to “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” remains Lynch’s most revered film, and he won Best Director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for it. Lynch also directed “The Straight Story” in 1999, a more aesthetically reserved drama than his other later movies. After the release of “Inland Empire,” Lynch was awarded a Golden Lion for his career achievements at the 2006 Venice Film Festival and a special award at the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards. His final narrative work came in 2017 with Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return.”
Born on January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, Lynch’s family moved around a lot in his youth before settling in Alexandria, Virginia, where Lynch graduated from high school. After a one-year stint at the School of the Museum Of Fine Arts In Boston, Lynch enrolled in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Arts in 1965. While living in Philadelphia, Lynch began to take an interest in short films, making “Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times)” and “The Alphabet” in 1968 and “The Grandmother” in 1970. By 1971, Lynch was in Los Angeles to study at AFI, with his work on “Eraserhead” commencing in 1972.
Outside of his film career, Lynch continued to be an avid painter and produced several solo and collaborative music albums. He also wrote the weekly comic book strip “The Angriest Dog In The World” for the LA Reader over eight years. In his later years, he regularly provided deadpan weather reports for LA radio station Indie 103.1, which became viral on YouTube during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. A lifelong advocate for transcendental meditation, Lynch established the David Lynch Foundation to promote the practice.
Lynch was married four times and is survived by two daughters and two sons. Rest in peace to one of filmmaking’s most formidable talents.
