On the occasion of David Lynch’s 65th birthday (and with the 25th anniversary of his masterpiece Blue Velvet coming up this September), Flavorpill presents 65 obscure facts about the renegade director/writer/photographer/musician/artist. Enjoy!
1. By the time he was 14, David Lynch had already lived in six different cities and five different states: Montana, Idaho, Washington, North Carolina, and Virginia.
2. He initially studied to be a painter.
3. Scripts are generally a page per minute of onscreen action, but the script for Eraserhead (which is 89 minutes long) is only 21 pages.
4. On his 15th birthday, Lynch worked with his fellow Virginia Eagle Scouts seating VIPs in the bleachers outside the White House at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.
5. During the five year production of Eraserhead, Lynch split from his first wife (Peggy Reavey) and married his second (Mary Fisk).
6. The idea for the title of the film Lost Highway came from a phrase in a novel by Barry Gifford, Night People. Only later on did Lynch find out Hank Williams had written a song called “Lost Highway.”
7. In the early ‘80s, Stanley Kubrick referred to Eraserhead as his favorite film.
8. Lynch has directed a number commercials, including ones for Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Playstation 2, and a Japanese coffee company.
9. Along with Twin Peaks, his other television work includes the short-lived ABC show On the Air, about a 1950s TV network, and the HBO miniseries Hotel Room.
10. The first half of his 2001 film Mulholland Drive was originally made as a pilot for ABC, before later being completed as a film.
Comments (22)
Lynch also presented “Interview Project,” a much overlooked online web series that won two Webby awards last year. A German version is currently in production. http://interviewproject.davidlynch.com
Lynch was asked to direct The Empire Strikes Back, not Return of the Jedi.
Thanks Mitch! It’s fixed now. And @LynchFan, we covered The Interview Project here: http://flavorwire.com/95396/david-lynchs-interview-project
this is awesome! love the writing style!
No, it was Return of the Jedi, not Empire. It’s in “Lynch on Lynch.” The dates don’t match up for Empire.
Matt M is right. Lynch said, “I went to meet George Lucas who had offered me the third Star Wars to direct, but I’ve never even really liked science fiction. I like elements of it, but it needs to be combined with other genres.”
Actually, I already knew about 30 of those…do I get my money back? Well, how about a donut and a steaming cup of joe, then?
The Angriest Dog in the World was so GREAT.
With reference to #57 on Lynch buttoning the top button of his shirt, David also likes to have one of the collar tips bent up, sticking out over his jacket collar, not underneath, so they’re asymmetrical, like the name of his production company.
Hank Williams never wrote a song called Lost Highway!
[...] Birthday, David Lynch. In honor, 65 things you didn’t know about him… Posted in Film, [...]
Hank Williams DOES have a song called Lost Highway… Moron.
Hank Williams ddn’t WRITE the song. Moron
Wow, I only knew 3 of those. Can i even call myself a David Lynch fan anymore? Shameful.
[...] the occasion of David Lynch's 65th birthday, Flavorpill reveals 65 things you may not know about the [...]
Nikisadoofus is properly titled! comes out calling people morons without actually reading the comment..
wow..now that is a moronic even for a doofus. There is a huge difference between having a song and writing it!
you guys are ridiculous with these page hits
“He attended the American Film Institute with River’s Edge director Tim Hunter. Both River’s Edge and Twin Peaks involve the murder of a high school girl.”
And Tim Hunter also directed episodes of Twin Peaks.
I love your article, but I think you are mistaken about fact #7. In a 1982 interview, Kubrick said he wished he had directed David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” because he liked the film so much. Kubrick’s favorite film is Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather.”
I assume the Kubrick factoid refers to the story that Lynch tells in Catching The Big Fish, and possibly in Lynch on Lynch as well, in which some friends of Lynch told him that they were hanging out with Kubrick one night and he said to them something like, “Hey, want to go watch my favorite movie?” and the film turned out to be Eraserhead. Also, it’s widely established that Kubrick screen Eraserhead for the cast of The Shining to express the sort of mood he was going for. (Much in the way that Lynch screen Sunset Boulevard for the cast and crew of Eraserhead to convey certain elements of style that he wanted them to aim for.)
I saw David Lynch present ‘Inland Empire’ at the Cinerama here in Seattle. His description/introduction of the film was this: “Ladies and gentlemen, Inland Empire.” The post-film discussion was awesome. I wasn’t expecting him to be as bubbly a personality as he is. I thought he would be brooding and angry, but no. Quirky, hell yes. But a very pleasant fellow. With exquisitely disturbing images. It’s high time for another film, Dave.
[...] may or may not already know that David Lynch has his own brand of organic coffee, which he calls “David Lynch Signature [...]
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