The eldest of three children, David Keith Lynch was born on January 20th, 1946 in Missoula, Montana. Lynch’s father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, while his mother was an English tutor. Because his father’s position required frequent movement, in addition to Montana, Lynch had childhood homes in Sandpoint, Idaho; Spokane, Washington; Durham, North Carolina; and Alexandria, Virginia.

Lynch’s first passion wasn’t motion pictures, but art – taking up painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and shortly thereafter moving to Massachusetts to study at the Boston Museum School in 1964. In 1965, Lynch headed off to Europe with good friend Jack Fisk to study with expressionist Oskar Kokoschka, but the pair returned after only 15 days abroad, citing a lack of inspiration as the reason.

1966 saw Lynch moving to Philadelphia, where he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Lynch lived in a less than affluent neighborhood while attending, and the impact of the blight that surrounds him would have a major effect on the films to follow.

Lynch first honed his directing skills in Philadelphia, shooting a number of shorts, which can be seen on the DVD release of The Short Films of David Lynch. In 1971, Lynch moved to Los Angeles and attended the AFI Conservatory, where he began work on his first full-length movie, Eraserhead.

In Heaven, Everything Is Fine

Eraserhead was shot in pieces, and took over five years to complete. It wasn’t released theatrically until 1977. Lynch’s movie told the story of Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), who lives in a highly mechanized town that also seems to be a wasteland. Henry has a girlfriend named Mary (Charlotte Stewart), who gives birth to their child – a grossly deformed baby.

Like many of Lynch’s films to follow, viewers are never quite sure if Eraserhead is to be interpreted as a dream or as some sort of dark and twisted reality. Likewise, many critics didn’t know how to react to the film – with some panning the movie (Variety called it a “sickening bad taste exercise”), and others praising it. Over time, more fans and critics have come to appreciate the title, seeing it as the launching point of the strangeness and surrealism Lynch would create in years to come.

I Am Not An Animal!

Not only did Eraserhead catch the eyes of many critics, it caught the eye of many in Hollywood as well. Stanley Kubrick once stated it was one of his all-time favorite films, and Mel Brooks was so impressed with Lynch’s work that he asked him to helm a movie he was producing: The Elephant Man.

The Elephant Man is the real-life story of the deformed Joseph Merrick (John Hurt), who is found at a freak show by Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins). Treves takes Merrick under his wing, and soon discovers that that is an extremely intelligent man underneath his disfigurement.

The Elephant Man was Lynch’s first legitimate “hit”, scoring both with audiences and critics. The movie was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Sadly, it didn’t take home any trophies, although it did win at BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards) for Best Film, Best Actor (Hurt) and Best Production Design.

The success led to Lynch’s first “big budget” movie, as he helmed the movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s popular science fiction novel, Dune. The 1984 movie was both a critical and box office failure. To his credit, Lynch distanced himself from the project almost immediately upon its release – stating that studio pressure and tampering prevented him from retaining artistic control of the movie. When Dune made its television debut a few years later with a longer cut of the movie, Lynch replaced his directing credit with “Alan Smithee” – the pseudonym used by directors who want their name taken off of a film. To this day, Lynch considers Dune to be his biggest failure as a filmmaker.

It's A Strange World

Teaming up for the second time with Dune star Kyle MacLachlan, 1986’s Blue Velvet is the quintessential Lynch flick: the story of a small town where dark secrets are simmering just beneath the surface.

McLachlan plays young Jeffrey Beaumont, who discovers a severed ear in a field not far from his home and begins to investigate what happened. He soon finds himself in the seedier part of his hometown, smitten by a beautiful lounge singer (Isabella Rossellini) and terrorized by her sociopathic lover (Dennis Hopper).

Lynch was nominated for his second Best Director Oscar, but once again failed to bring home the award. However, Blue Velvet has maintained a cult status as one of the best movies to be released in the 1980s. In 1999, it landed on Entertainment Weekly’s list of “The 100 Greatest Films of All Time” (ranking 37th).

Wrapped In Plastic

In 1989, it was time for Lynch to tackle a different medium: Network television. Teaming up with writer/director Mark Frost, he created the town of Twin Peaks, a locale not all that dissimilar to the one he invented for Blue Velvet.

Once again pegging actor Kyle MacLachlan for the lead, Twin Peaks tells the story of the murder of young high school student Laura Palmer, found washed ashore and wrapped in plastic not far from her home. Like all good television soap operas, everyone was a suspect in Laura’s death – with the exception of McLachlan himself, who played Special Agent Dale Cooper, the F.B.I. man called in to investigate the crime.

The longer Twin Peaks aired, the more it became Lynch-like in it’s storytelling. Dream sequences, quirky characters and conversations, and scenes that seemed to go on just a little longer than the home viewer was comfortable with became the norm on Twin Peaks – so much that viewers began checking out instead of tuning in. While Laura’s murderer was eventually revealed, the series was cancelled by ABC at the end of it’s second season. But it would not be the last fans saw of Laura Palmer....

Let's Rock!

While others were working on Twin Peaks (Lynch only directed a few of Season Two’s episodes), he was busy completing Wild At Heart, a 1990 film in which Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a young couple in love and on the run from the mob.

In 1992, Lynch made good on a promise to fans to continue the Twin Peaks story in a theatrical prequel: Fire Walk With Me. Primarily focusing on the events leading up to Laura Palmer’s murder, the movie was far more surreal than the television show had ever been and, as a result, was one of Lynch’s biggest financial disappointments at the box office.

Ironically, both Fire Walk With Me and Dune – Lynch’s most notable failures – are the only two movies directly by Lynch which were designed with sequels in mind. Of course, none ever materialized, thanks to their poor reception by audiences and critics alike.

Looking Up At The Stars...

1997’s Lost Highway (still unavailable at this time on DVD, although it has been released overseas) was yet another Lynch journey into the strange and undecipherable. It’s dreamlike story of a saxophone player (Bill Pullman) who is arrested for the murder of his wife and then (while in prison) seemingly morphs into another character (Balthazar Getty) altogether.

With moviegoers starting to wonder if Lynch would ever shoot a movie with a linear storyline again, along came 1999’s aptly titled The Straight Story, a G-rated film (from Disney, no less) in which Lynch told the real-life tale of elderly Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth, in his final role), who journeyed cross country on his lawn mower to visit his dying brother. Beautifully shot, but still maintaining the kind of quirkiness that Lynch loves to bring to his movies, The Straight Story just might be Lynch’s finest achievement.

A Woman In Trouble

Lynch followed his critical praise for The Straight Story with Mulholland Dr., a movie for which he received his third Oscar nomination for Best Director (the third time wasn’t a charm...Lynch lost again). The film, portions of which were actually shot as a television pilot for a series ABC dropped and never aired, is another Lynch journey into the surreal, telling the story of Rita (Laura Harring) who gets amnesia following an attempt on her life; and Betty (Naomi Watts) who tries to help Rita piece her life back together. The “twist” comes later in the film when Betty seemingly becomes a totally different character named Diane – making the audience wonder if the Betty and Rita we just spent the first half of the movie with ever existed, or if it was all happening in Diane’s mind.

Lynch’s most recent release is 2006’s INLAND EMPIRE (Lynch insists on the capitalization), a movie that was shot entirely on digital video, giving it a different look that all of Lynch’s other theatrical films. Featuring Lynch “regulars” Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton and Grace Zabriskie, INLAND EMPIRE focuses on a young actress Nikki Grace (Dern) who has been cast in her biggest role yet – a remake of a movie that was never completed because the stars were murdered. Things take a dark turn when Nikki realizes that life may be beginning to imitate art.

There's Always Music In The Air...

At the time of this writing, there is no word on what Lynch’s next theatrical project will be. However, in the DVD realm, CBS/Paramount has announced the release of the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition, which will contain the complete series, including the first DVD release of the pilot episode, which did not exist on previous releases due to some legal issues. The boxed set will also contain a number of brand-new featuettes and interviews, some of them reportedly filmed by Lynch himself.

Yes, David Lynch is an acquired taste and not for everyone, but for those who enjoy his work, each new project is like a cup of steaming hot joe...tasty and extremely addictive.