David Lynch facts for kids

Quick facts for kids David Lynch
Lynch in 1990
Born	David Keith Lynch (1946-01-20)January 20, 1946 Missoula, Montana, U.S.
Died	January 2025 (aged 78) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names	Judas Booth
Education	Corcoran School of the Arts and Design School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Occupation	Filmmaker painter visual artist musician author actor
Years active	1967–2025
Works	Filmography discography bibliography
Style	Surrealism, mystery, neo-noir, psychological thriller, arthouse
Spouse(s)	Peggy Lentz ​ ​ (m. 1968; div. 1974)​ Mary Fisk ​ ​ (m. 1977; div. 1987)​ Mary Sweeney ​ ​ (m. 2006; div. 2007)​ Emily Stofle ​ ​ (m. 2009; separated 2023)​
Partner(s)	Isabella Rossellini (1986–1991)
Children	4, including Jennifer
Awards	Full list
Signature

David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician and actor. Lynch received critical acclaim for his films, which are often distinguished by their surrealist, dreamlike qualities. In his 58-year career, he was awarded with numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2019. In 2007, a panel of critics convened by The Guardian announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era."

Early life

David Keith Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana, on January 20, 1946. His father, Donald Walton Lynch (1915–2007), was a research scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and his mother, Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (née Sundberg; 1919–2004), was an English language tutor. Two of Lynch's maternal great-grandparents were Finnish-Swedish immigrants who arrived in the U.S. during the 19th century. He was raised as a Presbyterian. The Lynches often moved around according to where the USDA assigned Donald. Because of this, Lynch moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, when he was two months old; two years later, after his brother John was born, the family moved to Spokane, Washington. Lynch's sister Martha was born there. The family then moved to Durham, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho, and Alexandria, Virginia. Lynch adjusted to this transitory early life with relative ease, noting that he usually had no issue making new friends whenever he started attending a new school. Of his early life, he remarked:

I found the world completely and totally fantastic as a child. Of course, I had the usual fears, like going to school ... for me, back then, school was a crime against young people. It destroyed the seeds of liberty. The teachers didn't encourage knowledge or a positive attitude.

Lynch's high school senior portrait, 1964

Alongside his schooling, Lynch joined the Boy Scouts. Later, he said he "became [a Scout] so I could quit and put it behind me". He rose to the highest rank of Eagle Scout. As an Eagle Scout, he was present with other Boy Scouts outside the White House at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on Lynch's 15th birthday. Lynch was also interested in painting and drawing from an early age, and became intrigued by the idea of pursuing it as a career path when living in Virginia, where his friend's father was a professional painter.

At Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria, Lynch did not excel academically, having little interest in schoolwork, but he was popular with other students.

Career

Lynch studied painting before he began making short films in the late 1960s. His first feature-length film was the independent surrealist film Eraserhead (1977), which saw success as a midnight movie. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the biographical drama The Elephant Man (1980) and the mystery films Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001). His romantic crime drama Wild at Heart (1990) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He also directed the space opera adaptation Dune (1984), the surrealist neo-noir Lost Highway (1997), the biographical drama The Straight Story (1999), and the experimental film Inland Empire (2006).

Lynch and Mark Frost created the ABC series Twin Peaks (1990–91), for which Lynch was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Lynch co-wrote and directed its film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), and its limited series revival (2017). He also worked as an actor, including his portrayals of FBI agent Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks and director John Ford in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans (2022), as well as guest roles in TV series such as The Cleveland Show (2010–13), Louie (2012), and Robot Chicken (2020, 2022).

Lynch's other artistic endeavors included his work as a musician, encompassing the studio albums BlueBOB (2001), Crazy Clown Time (2011), and The Big Dream (2013), as well as painting and photography. He wrote the books Images (1994), Catching the Big Fish (2006), and Room to Dream (2018). He directed several music videos, for artists such as Chris Isaak, X Japan, Moby, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails, and Donovan, and commercials for Calvin Klein, Dior, L'Oreal, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, and the New York City Department of Sanitation. A practitioner of Transcendental Meditation (TM), he founded the David Lynch Foundation, which seeks to fund the teaching of TM in schools and has since widened its scope to other at-risk populations, including the homeless, veterans, and refugees.

Naomi Watts, David Lynch, Laura Elena Harring, and Justin Theroux at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival promoting Mulholland Drive

Influences

Lynch had said his work is more similar to that of European filmmakers than American ones, and that most films that "get down and thrill your soul" are by European directors. He had expressed his admiration for Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Jacques Tati, Stanley Kubrick, and Billy Wilder. He had said that Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of his favorite pictures, as are Kubrick's Lolita (1962), Fellini's 8½ (1963), Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953), Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), and Herzog's Stroszek (1977). He had also cited Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962) and Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End (1970) as influences on his work.

Filmography

Film

Television

Lynch painted So This Is Love in 1992.

Lynch in 2007

Awards and nominations

Lynch has received multiple awards and nominations, including three Academy Award nominations for Best Director and one for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has twice won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government has awarded him the Legion of Honour, the country's top civilian distinction, honoring him first as a Chevalier in 2002 and then as an Officier in 2009; Lynch has also been awarded the key to the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland. In 2017, The MacDowell Colony awarded Lynch The Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contributions to American culture.

Personal life

Lynch had several long-term relationships. In January 1968, he married Peggy Reavey, with whom he had one child, Jennifer Lynch, born in 1968, who is a film director. They filed for divorce in 1974. In June 1977, Lynch married Mary Fisk, and the couple had one child, Austin Jack Lynch, born in 1982. They separated in 1985 and divorced in 1987. Lynch developed a relationship with actress Isabella Rossellini, with whom he lived between 1986 and 1991. In 1992, he and his editor Mary Sweeney had a son, Riley Sweeney Lynch. Sweeney also worked as Lynch's producer and co-wrote and produced The Straight Story. The two married in May 2006, but filed for divorce that June. In 2009, Lynch married actress Emily Stofle, who appeared in his 2006 film Inland Empire as well as the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. The couple had one child, Lula Boginia Lynch, born in 2012. Stofle filed for divorce in 2023. A divorce settlement agreement was reached on December 20, 2024, but a final divorce decree has not yet been issued by the court at the time of his death on January 16, 2025.

Lynch speaking on Transcendental Meditation and the creative process in 2007

Health and death

In August 2024, Lynch publicized that he had been diagnosed with emphysema, which he attributed to his years of smoking, and he could no longer direct in person. On January 16, 2025, Lynch's official Facebook page shared that Lynch had died, just four days shy of his 79th birthday.

Solo exhibitions

Discography

Studio albums

• BlueBOB (2001)
• Crazy Clown Time (2011)
• The Big Dream (2013)

Collaborative albums

• Lux Vivens (with Jocelyn Montgomery) (1998)
• The Air Is On Fire (with Dean Hurley) (2007)
• Polish Night Music (with Marek Zebrowski) (2007)
• This Train (with Chrystabell) (2011)
• Somewhere in the Nowhere (with Chrystabell) (2016)
• Thought Gang (with Angelo Badalamenti) (recorded 1992/93) (2018)
• Cellophane Memories (with Chrystabell) (2024)

See also

In Spanish: David Lynch para niños