lit a candle 2d agoI planted a cherry tree years ago after reading about his childhood. Every time I see the ants crawling up the bark I think of him and what he taught us about seeing. He made beauty from darkness.
Their story
David Keith Lynch was born on 20 January 1946 at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana, to Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (nee Sundholm), an English-language tutor, and Donald Walton Lynch, a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His mother's grandparents included Swedish-speaking Finns; family lines also included German, English,…
David Keith Lynch was born on 20 January 1946 at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana, to Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (nee Sundholm), an English-language tutor, and Donald Walton Lynch, a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His mother's grandparents included Swedish-speaking Finns; family lines also included German, English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Because of his father's USDA postings the family moved often: Sandpoint, Idaho; Spokane, Washington; Durham, North Carolina; Boise, Idaho; and Alexandria, Virginia. Lynch later described an outwardly "perfect" Midwestern childhood of tree-lined streets and cherry trees, and the discovery that "if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath." He was raised Presbyterian, became an Eagle Scout, and on his fifteenth birthday was among Boy Scouts present at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration.
Painting, not film, came first. A friend's father gave him Robert Henri's The Art Spirit, which steered him toward "the art life." After Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria he studied at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C., then briefly at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (roommate: future musician Peter Wolf) before dropping out. A short, disillusioned trip to Europe with friend Jack Fisk (seeking Oskar Kokoschka) ended after two weeks. Fisk steered him to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, whose industrial mood (factories, smoke, diners, danger) Lynch later called the biggest influence of his life. There he married fellow student Peggy Reavey (1968; divorce 1974); their daughter Jennifer Lynch, later a filmmaker, was born in 1968. Lynch's first short, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (1967), grew from a wish to make paintings move. The Alphabet (1968) and AFI-supported The Grandmother (1970) followed. In 1970 the family moved to Los Angeles for the AFI Conservatory. Over about five years, amid poverty, a paper route delivering The Wall Street Journal, and divorce, he completed the black-and-white surrealist feature Eraserhead (1977), which became a landmark midnight movie. Stanley Kubrick named it among his favorites.
Mel Brooks's Brooksfilms backed The Elephant Man (1980), starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. The film earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lynch. He declined George Lucas's offer to direct Return of the Jedi, then accepted Dino De Laurentiis's adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (1984). Studio interference and lack of final cut left Lynch unhappy; he later disowned an extended television cut, which credited director Alan Smithee and screenwriter "Judas Booth." Contractually he next made the personal neo-noir Blue Velvet (1986), with Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, and Dennis Hopper. It restored critical stature and brought a second Best Director Oscar nomination. Rossellini and Lynch were partners from about 1986 to 1991.
With Mark Frost he co-created ABC's Twin Peaks (1990-1991), a small-town murder mystery that fused soap opera, horror, and the uncanny; Lynch directed key episodes and played FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole. The same year Wild at Heart (Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. The darker prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) initially failed commercially but later won reappraisal. Later features included Lost Highway (1997), the G-rated road film The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001; Best Director at Cannes shared with Joel Coen; third Best Director Oscar nomination; later named best film of the 21st century in a BBC critics' poll), and the digital experimental Inland Empire (2006), his last theatrical feature. He directed music videos and commercials, painted and exhibited widely, designed furniture and the Paris club Silencio, recorded albums including Crazy Clown Time and (with Chrystabell) Cellophane Memories (2024), wrote Catching the Big Fish and the memoir hybrid Room to Dream, and from 2017 returned as writer-director of all eighteen episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return on Showtime. Late acting included Gus on The Cleveland Show, a guest arc on Louie, and John Ford in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022). In 2019 the Academy gave him an Honorary Award; his brief acceptance thanked helpers and told the statue, "You have a very nice face."
Lynch practiced Transcendental Meditation from July 1973 without missing sessions, founded the David Lynch Foundation (2005) to fund TM for students, veterans, and at-risk groups, and often summarized himself as "Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana." He married Mary Fisk (1977-1987; son Austin Jack Lynch, 1982); had son Riley Sweeney Lynch (1992) with editor-producer Mary Sweeney (married May 2006; divorced 2007); and married Emily Stofle (2009; separated 2023; daughter Lula Boginia Lynch, 2012). A divorce settlement with Stofle was reached 20 December 2024; no final decree had issued before his death. In August 2024 he disclosed emphysema diagnosed in 2020 after lifelong smoking, saying he was housebound and oxygen-dependent. In January 2025 Southern California wildfires forced evacuation from his Hollywood Hills compound. He died soon after at Jennifer's Los Angeles home on 16 January 2025, aged 78. The family announced the news on his Facebook page with his own maxim: keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. A death certificate later listed cardiac arrest due to COPD, with dehydration as a significant contributor. He was cremated; ashes were buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Collaborators including Kyle MacLachlan, Naomi Watts, Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Nicolas Cage, and Steven Spielberg led global tributes to a filmmaker whose name became an adjective for the beautiful and terrifying ordinary.
Biography adapted from EN Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch); NYT obituary J. Hoberman (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/movies/david-lynch-dead.html); BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyv9ge0pge.
In their own words
“Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.”
Personal motto; quoted by family in the January 2025 death announcement. Also in Catching the Big Fish. Source: Family Facebook statement; Catching the Big Fish.
“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.”
Opening metaphor of Catching the Big Fish on meditation and creativity. Source: Catching the Big Fish; Wikipedia quotation.
“Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana.”
How he liked to sum himself up. Source: Obituaries; Montana profiles; Wikipedia memorials.
“My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets... But on the cherry tree there's this pitch oozing out... millions of red ants crawling all over it.”
Explaining beauty-and-horror duality. Source: Lynch on Lynch / Wikipedia early-life blockquote.
“To the Academy and everyone who helped me along the way, thanks. You have a very nice face. Good night.”
Honorary Oscar acceptance, Governors Awards, 27 October 2019. Source: Consequence; Hollywood Reporter; Wikipedia.
“I've gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I'm homebound whether I like it or not.”
Sight & Sound interview, August 2024, publicly disclosing health limits. Source: Independent; PEOPLE; Wikipedia illness section.
“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.”
Family death announcement, Facebook, 16 January 2025. Source: Family statement via BBC/CNN/Reuters.
Photos
4David Lynch at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival (Twin Peaks: The Return era)
by People Forever
David Lynch senior yearbook portrait, Francis C. Hammond High School (The Anchor), 1964
by People Forever
That's beautiful. The man was an entire world.