Lynch may refer to:

• Lynching, also known as Lynch law; named after Charles Lynch (jurist); a form of extralegal judgment and punishment, usually by killing
• Terrace (agriculture) (old English), a terrace, also called a "lynch"

People[link]

• Lynch (surname), a surname of English and Irish origin
• List of people with surname Lynch

Places[link]

In the United States:

• Lynch, Kentucky
• Lynch, Maryland
• Lynch, Nebraska
• Lynch Township, Boyd County, Nebraska

Other uses[link]

• Lynch., Japanese rock band
• Lynch syndrome, a medical condition

See also[link]

• Merrill Lynch, international finance and insurance

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Marshawn Lynch

Lynch at the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl
No. 24     Seattle Seahawks
Running back
Personal information
Date of birth: (1986-04-22) April 22, 1986 (age 26)
Place of birth: Oakland, California
Height: 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) Weight: 220 lb (100 kg)
Career information
College: California
NFL Draft: 2007 / Round: 1 / Pick: 12
Debuted in 2007 for the Buffalo Bills
Career history
Buffalo Bills (2007–2010) Seattle Seahawks (2010–present)
Roster status: Active
Career highlights and awards
2× Pro Bowl (2008, 2011) Ranked #94 in the Top 100 Players of 2012 First-team All-American (2006) First-team All-Pac-10 (2006) Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year (2006) Holiday Bowl Co-MVP (2006) Las Vegas Bowl MVP (2005) Honorable mention All-Pac-10 (2005)
Career NFL statistics as of Week 17, 2011
Rushing yards 4,542 Rushing average 4.0 Rushing TDs 35 Stats at NFL.com

Marshawn Terrell Lynch (born April 22, 1986) is an American football running back for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the first round (12th overall) of the 2007 NFL Draft. In his rookie year, Lynch became the Bills' first 1,000-yard rookie rusher since Greg Bell in 1984.^[1] He finished the season with 1,115 total rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Lynch played college football at California, where he was the school's second all-time career rusher with 3,230 yards.^[2]

Early years[link]

Lynch attended Oakland Technical High School. In his 2003 season, Lynch amassed 1,722 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns in only eight regular season games, and an additional 375 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in two postseason games. He was voted a PrepStar and SuperPrep All-American and was also voted as the San Francisco East Bay Player of the Year.^[3]

Lynch experimented with other positions in high school. He played defensive back and accumulated 20 interceptions his senior year. His coaches put him at defensive end for one game, and he forced three fumbles. Lynch also played some quarterback and wide receiver in high school.^[4] Before high school, Lynch had originally played as an offensive guard.^[5] Rivals.com had him ranked #1 in the nation as a defensive back, but he decided to stick to his passion at running back. Lynch ended his high school career as the second-ranked running back in the nation in 2004 behind Adrian Peterson by Rivals.com.

In addition to being a star football player, Lynch was also an excellent track sprinter and played on Oakland Tech's basketball team alongside former Cal star and current Memphis Grizzlies forward Leon Powe.

College career[link]

Lynch attended University of California, Berkeley playing for the Golden Bears where his major was social welfare. In an online video posted in February 2008,^[6] Lynch implies he maintained a 3.2 GPA during his time at Cal.

As a true freshman in 2004, Lynch was the primary backup to senior J.J. Arrington. Lynch carried the ball 71 times for 628 yards with 8 rushing touchdowns and an additional 147 yards on 19 receptions and 2 receiving touchdowns.

In 2005, Arrington graduated and Lynch became the starting running back. Even though he missed two games due to a hand and finger injury, he still amassed 1,246 rushing yards with 10 touchdowns on 196 carries and an additional 125 yards on 15 receptions. In the 2005 Las Vegas Bowl, Lynch ran for 194 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries and was named MVP.

Lynch wore jersey No. 24 his freshman year but switched to No. 10, his high school number. This switch placed him in sequence with his cousins Virdell Larkins (No. 9) and Robert Jordan (No. 11), also teammates at Cal.^[7]

In the 2006 preseason, Lynch earned a spot on the watchlist for the Maxwell Award, was named 8th best player in the nation by Sports Illustrated and earned several preseason All-American accolades.

On July 22, 2006, the Cal football program officially launched the campaign for Lynch to win the 2006 Heisman Trophy with the opening of the website Marshawn10.com, featuring Lynch's highlights from the 2004, 2005, and 2006 seasons.^[8] Lynch was named to the 2006 All Pac-10 team First Team.^[9] Lynch not only earned various awards, he also scored the game-winning overtime touchdown against Washington. He later called the run his favorite career highlight, after which Lynch spontaneously drove around the football field in an injury cart, pretending to ghost ride.^[10]

Lynch was also named the Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year in 2006 and an AFCA (Coaches') All-America in 2006.

In his final game for California, Lynch ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns against Texas A&M in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl on December 28, 2006. He shared the Co-Offensive Player of the Game award with teammate, quarterback Nate Longshore.

Lynch had a highly successful career at Cal and holds the school record for most 100-yard rushing games at 17.^[11]

On January 2, 2007, Lynch announced he would forgo his senior season and entered the NFL draft.^[12]

Career statistics[link]

Statistics up to date as of December 28, 2006. College statistics from CalBears.com^[13][14] and ESPN.com.^[15]

Rushing[link]

Receiving[link]

Kick returns[link]

NFL career[link]

2007 NFL Draft[link]

On April 28, 2007, Lynch was selected by the Buffalo Bills with the 12th overall pick in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft. He agreed with the Bills to a six-year, $18.935 million contract. The deal included a $3 million signing bonus and contained $10.285 million in total guarantees.

(* represents NFL Combine)

Buffalo Bills[link]

2007 season[link]

Lynch entered the 2007 season as the starter at running back for the Buffalo Bills. In his first game of the regular season on September 9, he gained 90 yards on 19 carries and scored his first touchdown in a 15–14 loss to the Denver Broncos. His breakout game came on November 4 against the Cincinnati Bengals. Lynch's success on the ground was instrumental in keeping the touted Cincinnati offense on the sidelines, as he rushed 29 times for 153 yards, including a 56-yard touchdown run. Lynch also completed a touchdown pass to tight end Robert Royal, the first touchdown pass completed by a Bills non-quarterback since 1981.^[17]

Lynch injured his ankle the following week against the Miami Dolphins and missed the next three games. He returned to play on December 9 for the second game of the Bills' season against the Dolphins, rushing for 107 yards and making his first career fumble. The game marked the first time that the Bills' offense produced two 100-yard rushers since 1996, as Fred Jackson also rushed for 115 yards.^[18] Lynch went over the 1,000-yard rushing mark on December 23 against the New York Giants, scoring a touchdown in the 38–21 loss which resulted in the Giants clinching a playoff berth. This made him the fourth Bills rookie to break the 1,000-yard mark, and the first since Greg Bell in 1984.^[1] He finished a successful rookie season with 1,115 total rushing yards and seven touchdowns.

Lynch was expected to be more involved in Buffalo's passing game in 2008, his second season as a pro. The Bills' new offensive coordinator Turk Schonert had stated a number of times that he anticipated Lynch "being in on third down a lot more" this season, citing Lynch's inexperience as a reason he was not very involved in 2007.

2008 season[link]

Lynch was held to a 2008 low of 16 yards rushing in a matchup against the New York Jets on November 2. He did not break 100 yards rushing in a game until November 17 on a Monday Night Football matchup against the Cleveland Browns, when he rushed for 119. The game also marked his first receiving touchdown. Two weeks later Lynch posted a season high 134 rushing yards against the San Francisco 49ers on November 30. Lynch went over the 1,000-yard mark for the season on December 14 in a rematch against the Jets when he rushed for 127 yards. He was able to stay healthy until injuring his shoulder in the second half of a Bills victory on December 21 against the Denver Broncos, during which he rushed for his eighth touchdown of the season. The injury kept him out of the Bills' final game of the season against the New England Patriots. Lynch finished the 2008 season with 1,036 yards rushing and eight rushing touchdowns. He posted 300 receiving yards on 47 receptions, including a receiving touchdown, compared to 184 yards on 18 receptions for the 2007 season. Lynch was selected to his first Pro Bowl, replacing an injured Chris Johnson.^[19] This made him the first Bills running back to head to the Pro Bowl since Travis Henry in 2002. Lynch was initially a first alternate.

2009 season[link]

Lynch carries the ball against the New York Jets in October 2009.

Following his guilty plea on misdemeanor weapons charges during the 2009 offseason, Lynch met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for a disciplinary hearing.^[20] On April 9, the NFL announced that Lynch would be suspended for the Bills' first three games for violations of the NFL's personal conduct policy.^[21] Lynch appealed the league's suspension on May 14 in an attempt to have it reduced or nullified, only to have it upheld by Goodell later on August 3. When interviewed on the topic, Lynch has said that he was not surprised when the suspension was upheld, and that he loves playing too much and will try to keep himself out of situations in which there is a risk of being suspended.^[22]

Lynch played his first game of the 2009 season against the Miami Dolphins and played the rest of the season. Beginning November 29, he was supplanted as the Bills' starting running back by Fred Jackson, who had the first 1,000-yard rushing season of his career. Lynch finished the season with 450 yards on 120 carries with two rushing touchdowns and did not break 100 rushing yards in a single game.

2010 season[link]

Lynch suffered an ankle sprain in the Bills' preseason opening game against the Washington Redskins and was expected to be out for three to four weeks.^[23] He started three games for the Bills before being traded to the Seattle Seahawks on October 5 for two draft picks, a fourth-rounder in 2011 and a conditional pick in 2012.^[24]

Seattle Seahawks[link]

Lynch was traded to the Seahawks - for a fourth-round pick in 2011 and a fifth-round pick in 2012 - on October 5, reuniting him with former Cal roommate and fellow running back Justin Forsett, a seventh-round draft pick of the Seahawks in 2008.

Lynch scored his first touchdown of the season on October 17 on a one-yard run against the Chicago Bears. On December 5, he scored three touchdowns against the Carolina Panthers.

In his first career playoff game on January 8, 2011, Lynch had a 67-yard touchdown run in which he broke eight tackles and with one arm threw Saints cornerback Tracy Porter to the ground.^[25] The home field crowd's reaction to the run was so strong that it was recorded as seismic activity at a monitoring station 100 yards from the stadium.^{[26][dead link]} The fourth-quarter run proved to be the game winner, as three minutes later the game ended with the Seahawks defeating the Saints, 41–36, capping one of the biggest upsets in NFL playoff history.

Lynch had a total of 747 yards during the 2010 season.

2011 Season[link]

Lynch started 15 games, only missing one regular season game on November 23, 2011, due to back problems during warm ups. Lynch finished the 2011 season rushing for 1,204 yards and twelve touchdowns, both career bests and posting his first 1,000 yard season since 2008. On December 18, 2011, Lynch set the franchise record for consecutive games with a rushing touchdown by scoring in his 10th straight game. The previous record of nine was set by Shaun Alexander in 2005. Lynch led the NFL in rushing yardage over the final nine weeks of the season.^[27] On January 24, 2012 Lynch was added to the NFC Pro Bowl roster to replace San Francisco 49ers running back Frank Gore.^[27] On March,4 2011 Marshawn Lynch signed a 4 year $31 Million contract.

Personal[link]

Lynch has several relatives who have also played professional football. His cousins are wide receiver Robert Jordan, who played alongside Lynch at Cal from 2004–2006, former Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell, and quarterback Josh Johnson of the San Francisco 49ers. Lynch's uncle, Lorenzo Lynch, had an 11-year career in the NFL.^[28]

Lynch was nicknamed "Money" in college.^[29] Additionally, he has referred to himself as being in "beast mode" during games.^[30]

While in Buffalo, Lynch embraced the Buffalo community, in stark contrast to former Bills RB Willis McGahee, as noted by an interview with ESPN's Kenny Mayne.^[31] In the video interview, which has become an internet sensation, Lynch talks about his love of Applebees, and his teammates joke that he loves chain restaurants.

Lynch frequently eats Skittles during games, a habit which started when Lynch was in high school. After Lynch was shown eating the candy during a nationally-televised game on December 1, 2011, Mars offered him a two-year supply of Skittles and a custom dispenser for his locker.^[32] On December 30, 2011, he was fined $10,000 for wearing cleats featuring a Skittles pattern.^[33]

Lynch also has an affinity for purchasing grills, saying he's been wearing the gold jewelry since junior high school. After the 2011 season, Lynch purchased a customized Seahawks grill in time for the 2012 season.^[34]

Legal issues[link]

On June 14, 2006, Lynch was the victim of mistaken identity when unknown assailants shot at his car outside his high school alma mater as he was about to visit his little sister on her graduation day. He was not the intended target of the shooting, and no one was injured. The shooter phoned Lynch's mother to apologize.^[35]

On January 25, 2007, Lynch was accused of sexual assault by his former girlfriend. The incident reportedly happened on December 13, 2006, outside the woman's home in Emeryville, California. On January 29, 2007, an Alameda County Deputy District Attorney who specializes in domestic violence cases declined to press charges, citing a lack of evidence and "grave inconsistencies" in the alleged victim's accusations.^[36] Lynch was never arrested or charged.

On March 3, 2007, an Alameda County judge threw out a restraining order that Lynch's ex-girlfriend had issued against him because it was obtained improperly.^[37]

During June 2008, Lynch was investigated for his involvement in a hit and run accident that occurred in Buffalo on May 31, 2008. His 2008 Porsche Cayenne struck and injured Kimberley Shpeley, of Ontario, Canada, before leaving the scene. It should be noted that Shpeley was extremely intoxicated, and dancing in the middle of the street.^[38][39] After the 27-day saga, on June 26, 2008, Lynch apologized and accepted a guilty plea to a single count of failure to exercise due care to avoid striking a pedestrian, a traffic violation. He was assessed a $100 fine, and his driver’s license and car registration were revoked. Because a Buffalo police officer gave testimony that Shpeley did not suffer "severe physical injury," Lynch avoided criminal charges for the incident.^[40] Lynch was later sued by Shpeley on December 28, 2009 for negligence.^[41]

Three days after his 2009 Pro Bowl appearance, Lynch was arrested on February 11 in Culver City, California. Lynch and two companions were sitting in a running 2006 Mercedes-Benz when police approached; after smelling marijuana, the police searched the car and discovered a loaded gun that was determined to belong to Lynch. He was released the same day after posting $35,000 bail.^[42] Lynch's felony charge was reduced to three misdemeanors, and no drug charges were filed.^[43] On March 5, Lynch pled guilty to a single misdemeanor gun charge and was sentenced to three years of probation, and 80 hours of community service. He also agreed to submit to police searches at any time. The two other misdemeanor gun charges were dismissed.^[44]

Lynch was accused of stealing $20 from the wife of a Buffalo police officer in a local TGI Friday's on December 7, 2009. A complaint was filed against him the next day but no charges were ever filed.^[45][46]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marshawn Lynch

• Official website
• Official Blog on Yardbarker
• Seattle Seahawks bio
• Marshawn10.com: Cal's website for Marshawn Lynch
• California Golden Bears bio
• ESPN bio

David Lynch
David Lynch in 2007
Born	David Keith Lynch (1946-01-20) January 20, 1946 (age 66) Missoula, Montana, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Education	School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Alma mater	Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, AFI Conservatory
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, producer, painter, musician
Years active	1966–present
Notable work(s)	Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead
Style	Nonlinear, Psychological, Neo-noir, Surrealistic, Horror
Influenced by	Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Stanley Kubrick, Nicolas Roeg, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Werner Herzog, Luis Buñuel, Billy Wilder, Jacques Tati, Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Frances Bay
Influenced	Stanley Kubrick, Coen brothers,[1] Quentin Tarantino,[1] Darren Aronofsky, Jonathan Caouette, Adam Goldberg, Greg Harrison, Martin McDonagh, Jhonen Vasquez, Lars von Trier
Home town	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C.
Religion	none[2]
Spouse	Peggy Lentz (1967–1974) Mary Fisk (1977–1987) Mary Sweeney (2006) Emily Stofle (2009–present)
Partner	Isabella Rossellini (1986–1991)
Parents	Donald Walton Lynch, Edwina (nee Sundholm)

David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, comic book artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery, and meticulous sound design. The surreal, and in many cases violent, elements to his films have earned them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences.^[3]

Born to a middle class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. Deciding to devote himself more fully to this medium, he moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. Then being employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, he proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was highly critically acclaimed.

Proceeding to create his own television series with Mark Frost, the highly popular murder mystery Twin Peaks (1990–1992), he also created a cinematic prequel, Fire Walk With Me (1992); a road movie, Wild at Heart (1990) and a family film, The Straight Story (1999), in the same period. Turning further towards surrealist filmmaking, three of his following films worked on "dream logic" non-linear narrative structures, Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006). Meanwhile, Lynch proceeded to embrace the internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animation Dumbland (2002) and the surreal sitcom Rabbits (2002).

In the course of his career, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director,^[4][5][6] and a nomination for best screenplay. Lynch has twice won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival^[7] and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as a Chevalier in 2002 and then an Officier in 2007,^[8] while that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era".^[9] Allmovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking",^[10] while the success of his films have led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."^[11]

Life and career[link]

Early life: 1946–1965[link]

Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20, 1946.^[13][14] His father, Donald Walton Lynch, was a research scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his mother, Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (née Sundholm), was an English language tutor^[13] whose grandfather's parents had immigrated to the United States from Finland in the 19th century.^[15] Lynch was raised a Presbyterian.^[16][17] Due to Donald's job, the Lynch family often moved around according to where the Department of Agriculture assigned him. It was because of this that when he was two months old, David Lynch moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, and only two years after that, following the birth of his brother John, the family again moved, this time to Spokane, Washington. It was here that his sister Martha was born, before they once more moved, this time to Durham, North Carolina, then to Boise, Idaho and then to Alexandria, Virginia.^[14] Lynch found this transitory early life relatively easy to adjust to, noting that he found it fairly easy to meet new friends whenever he started attending a new school.^[18] Commenting on much of his early life, Lynch has remarked that "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."^[19] Alongside this schooling, he joined the Boy Scouts, although he would later note that he only "became one so I could quit, and put it behind me." He rose to the highest rank of Eagle Scout. It was through being an Eagle Scout that he was present with other Boy Scouts outside of the White House at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on Lynch's birthday in 1961.^[20]

Lynch had become interested in painting and drawing from an early age, becoming intrigued by the idea of pursuing it as a career path when living in Virginia, where his friend's father was a professional painter.^[21] At Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he did poorly academically, having little interest in school work, but was popular with other students, and after leaving decided that he wanted to study painting at college, thereby beginning his studies at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, where he was a roommate of Peter Wolf.^[22] Nonetheless, he left after only a year, stating that "I was not inspired AT ALL in that place", and instead deciding that he wanted to travel around Europe for three years with his friend Jack Fisk, who was similarly unhappy with his studies at Cooper Union. They had some hopes that in Europe they could train with the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka at his school. Upon reaching Salzburg, however, they found that he was not available and, disillusioned, returned to the United States after spending only 15 days of their planned three years in Europe.^[23]

Philadelphia and short films: 1966–1970[link]

Back in the United States, Lynch returned to Virginia, but since his parents had moved to Walnut Creek, California, he was forced to stay with his friend Tony Keeler for a while, before he decided to move to the city of Philadelphia, where, at the advice of Jack Fisk, who was already attending it, he decided to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, something he preferred far more than his previous art college in Boston, claiming that "In Philadelphia there were great and serious painters, and everybody was inspiring one another and it was a beautiful time there."^[24] It was here that he began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, and they were married in 1967. The following year, Peggy gave birth to their child, a girl whom they named Jennifer. Later describing this situation, Peggy stated that "[Lynch] definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We were both reluctant."^[25] As a family, they moved to the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they were able to purchase a large 12-room house for a relatively low $3,500 due to the high crime and poverty rates in the area. Later describing living there, Lynch stated that "We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street… We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in… The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city."^[26] Meanwhile, in order to help financially support his family alongside his art studies, he took up a job printing engravings.^[27]

It was at the Philadelphia Academy that Lynch made his first short film, which was entitled Six Men Getting Sick (1966). He had first come up with the idea when he developed a wish to see his paintings move, and he subsequently began discussing the idea of creating an animation with an artist named Bruce Samuelson. When this project never came about, Lynch decided to work on a film alone, and so purchased the cheapest 16mm camera that he could find in order to do so. Taking one of the abandoned upper rooms of the Academy as a working space, he spent $200 – which at the time he felt to be a lot of money – to produce Six Men Getting Sick.^[28] Describing the work as "57 seconds of growth and fire, and three seconds of vomit", Lynch played the film on a loop at the Academy's annual end-of-year exhibit, where it shared joint first prize with a painting by Noel Mahaffey.^[29][30] This led to a commission from one of his fellow students, the wealthy H. Barton Wasserman, who offered him $1000 to create a film installation in his home. Spending $478.28 of that on purchasing the second-hand Bolex camera "of [his] dreams," Lynch produced a new animated short, but upon getting the film developed, realized that the result was simply a blurred, frameless print. As he would later relate, "So I called up Bart [Wasserman] and said, 'Bart, the film is a disaster. The camera was broken and what I've done hasn't turned out.' And he said, 'Don't worry, David, take the rest of the money and make something else for me. Just give me a print.' End of story."^[31]

Using this leftover money, Lynch decided to experiment on making a work that was a mix of animation with live action, producing a four minute short entitled The Alphabet (1968). The film starred Lynch's wife Peggy as a character known as The Girl, who chants the alphabet to a series of images of horses before dying at the end by hemorrhaging blood all over her bed sheets. Adding a sound effect, Lynch used a broken Uher tape recorder to record the sound of his baby daughter Jennifer crying, creating a distorted sound that Lynch felt to be particularly effective. Later describing where he had got inspiration for this work from, Lynch stated that "Peggy's niece was having a bad dream one night and was saying the alphabet in her sleep in a tormented way. So that's sort of what started The Alphabet going. The rest of it was just subconscious."^[30][32]

Learning about the newly founded American Film Institute, which gave grants to film makers who could produce for them both a prior work and a script for a new project, Lynch decided to send them a copy of The Alphabet along with a script that he had written for a new short film, one that would be almost entirely live action, and which would be entitled The Grandmother.^[33] The Institute agreed to help finance the work, initially offering him $5000, out of his requested budget of $7,200, but later granting him the further $2,200 which he needed. Starring people he knew from both work and college and filmed in his own house,^[34] The Grandmother revolved around the story of a neglected boy who "grows" a grandmother from a seed to care for him. The film critics Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell later remarked that "this film is a true oddity but contains many of the themes and ideas that would filter into his later work, and shows a remarkable grasp of the medium".^[35]

[edit] Los Angeles and Eraserhead: 1971–1979

The poster for Eraserhead, featuring the film's protagonist, Henry (Jack Nance).

In 1971 Lynch moved with his wife and daughter to Los Angeles, where he began studying filmmaking at the AFI Conservatory, a place that he would later describe as being "completely chaotic and disorganized, which was great… you quickly learned that if you were going to get something done, you would have to do it yourself. They wanted to let people do their thing."^[36] He began writing a script for a proposed work entitled Gardenback, which had "unfolded from this painting I'd done." In this venture he was supported by a number of figures at the Conservatory, who encouraged him to lengthen the script and add in more dialogue, something that he reluctantly agreed to do. Nonetheless, with all the interference on his Gardenback project, he became fed up with the Conservatory and announced that he was quitting. Attempting to prevent this, many of the teachers at the center asked him to reconsider, believing that he was one of their best students, and he finally agreed, albeit on the condition that he could create his own project that would not be interfered with. Feeling that Gardenback was "wrecked", he instead set about on a new film, which he called Eraserhead.^[37]

Despite the fact that the film was planned to be about forty-two minutes long (it ended up being eighty-nine minutes long), the script for Eraserhead was only 21 pages long, and some of the teachers at the Conservatory were concerned that the film would not be a success with such little dialogue and action. Nonetheless, they agreed not to interfere as they had done with Gardenback, and as such Lynch was able to create the film free from interference. Filming, which began in 1972, took place at night in some abandoned stables, allowing the production team, which was largely Lynch and some of his friends, including Sissy Spacek, Jack Fisk, cinematographer Frederick Elmes and sound designer Alan Splet to set up a camera room, green room, editing room, sets as well as a food room and a bathroom.^[38] Initially, funding for the project came from the AFI, who gave Lynch a $10,000 grant, but it was not enough to complete the work, and under pressure from studios after the success of the relatively cheap feature film Easy Rider, they were unable to provide him with any more. Following this, Lynch was also supported by a loan given to him by his father, and by money that he was able to bring in from a paper route that he took up delivering the Wall Street Journal.^[39] Not long into the production of Eraserhead, Lynch and his wife Peggy amicably separated and divorced, and so he began living full-time on set. In 1977, Lynch would remarry, this time to a woman named Mary Fisk.^[40]

Filmed in black and white, Eraserhead tells the story of a quiet young man named Henry (Jack Nance) living in a dystopian industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a deformed baby whom she leaves in his care. The baby constantly cries, eventually leading to its accidental death, at which the world itself begins to fall apart. Lynch has consistently refused to either confirm or deny any interpretation of Eraserhead, or to "confess his own thinking behind the many abstractions in the film."^[41] Nonetheless, he admits that it was heavily influenced by the fearful mood of Philadelphia, and referred to the film as "my Philadelphia Story".^[42][43]

It was due to the financial problems with the production of Eraserhead that filming was haphazard, regularly stopping and starting again. It was in one such break in 1974 that Lynch created a short film entitled The Amputee, which revolved around a woman with two amputated legs (played by Jack Nance's wife, Catherine Coulson) reading aloud a letter and having her stumps washed by a doctor (played by Lynch himself).^[44][45]

Eraserhead was finally finished in 1976, after five years of production. Lynch subsequently tried to get the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, but while some reviewers liked it, others felt that it was awful, and so it was not selected for screening. Similarly, reviewers from the New York Film Festival also rejected it, though it was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where Ben Barenholtz, the distributor of the Elgin Theater, heard about it.^[46] He was very supportive of the movie, helping to distribute it around the United States in 1977, and Eraserhead subsequently became popular on the midnight movie underground circuit,^[41] and was later described as one of the most important midnight movies of the seventies along with El Topo, Pink Flamingos, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Harder They Come and Night of the Living Dead.^[47] The acclaimed film maker Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of his all-time favorite films.^[48]

[edit] The Elephant Man and mainstream success: 1980–1982

After the cult success of Eraserhead on the underground circuit, Stuart Cornfeld, an executive producer for Mel Brooks, saw it and later remarked that "I was just 100 per cent blown away… I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. It was such a cleansing experience."^[49] Contacting Lynch, he agreed to help him with his next planned project, a film entitled Ronnie Rocket for which Lynch had already written a script. Nonetheless, Lynch soon realized that Ronnie Rocket, a film that he described as being about "electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair", was not going to be picked up by any financiers, and so he asked Cornfeld to find him a script written by someone else which he could direct. Cornfeld went away and found him four possible scripts, but upon hearing the title of the first, The Elephant Man, Lynch was already sure that that was the script for him, going on nothing but the title.^[50]

The Elephant Man script – written by Chris de Vore and Eric Bergren – was based upon a true story, that of Joseph Merrick, a heavily deformed man living in Victorian London, who was held in a sideshow but was later taken under the care of a London surgeon, Frederick Treves. Lynch wanted to film it, but at the same time also had to make some alterations that would alter the story from true events, but in his view make a better plot.^[51] However, in order to do so he would have to get the permission of Mel Brooks, whose company, BrookFilms, would be responsible for production; subsequently Brooks viewed Eraserhead, and after coming out of the screening theatre, embraced Lynch, declaring that "You're a madman, I love you! You're in."^[52]

The resulting film, The Elephant Man, starred John Hurt as John Merrick (his name was changed from Joseph), as well as Anthony Hopkins as Frederick Treves. Filming took place in London, and Lynch brought his own distinctively surrealist approach to the film, filming it in color stock black and white, but nonetheless it has been described as "one of the most conventional" of his films.^[53] The Elephant Man was a huge critical and commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lynch personally.^[54]

[edit] The De Laurentiis films, Dune and Blue Velvet: 1983–1986

Following on from the success of The Elephant Man, the film maker George Lucas, himself a fan of Eraserhead, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct the third film in his Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Lynch however refused, arguing that Lucas should direct the film himself as the movie should reflect his own vision, not Lynch's take on it.^[43][55] Soon after however, the opportunity to direct another big-budget science fiction epic arose when Dino de Laurentiis of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group asked him to create a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune (1965).^[55] Lynch agreed, and in doing so was also contractually obliged to produce two other works for the company. He then set about writing a script based upon the original novel, initially with both Chris de Vore and Eric Bergren, and then just by himself when De Laurentiis wasn't happy with their ideas.^[56] Lynch also helped build some of the sets, attempting to create "a certain look" for the film, and he particularly enjoyed building the set for the oil planet of Giedi Prime, for which he "used steel, bolts, and porcelain to construct" it.^[57]

Dune is set in the far future, when humans live in an interstellar empire run along a feudal system. The main character, Paul Atreides (played by Kyle MacLachlan), is the son of a noble who takes control of the desert planet Arrakis which grows the rare spice melange, the most highly prized commodity in the empire. Lynch however was unhappy with the work, later remarking that "Dune was a kind of studio film. I didn’t have final cut. And, little by little, I was subconsciously making compromises" to his own vision.^[58] He produced much footage for the film that was eventually removed out from the final theatrical cut, dramatically condensing the plot.^[59] Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be as successful as Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud; it had cost $45 million to make, and grossed a mere $27.4 million domestically. Later on, Universal Studios released an "extended cut" of the film for syndicated television, containing almost an hour of cutting-room-floor footage and new narration. Such was not representative of Lynch's intentions, but the studio considered it more comprehensible than the original two-hour version. Lynch objected to these changes and had his name struck from the extended cut, which has "Alan Smithee" credited as the director and "Judas Booth" (a pseudonym which Lynch himself invented, inspired by his own feelings of betrayal) as the screenwriter.^[60]

Meanwhile in 1983 he had begun the writing and drawing of a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, which featured unchanging graphics of a tethered dog that was so angry that it could not move, alongside cryptic philosophical references. It ran from 1983 until 1992 in the Village Voice, Creative Loafing and other tabloid and alternative publications.^[61] It was around this period that Lynch also got increasingly interested in photography as an art form, and travelled to northern England to take photos of the degrading industrial landscape, something that he was particularly interested in.^[62]

Following on from Dune, Lynch was contractually still obliged to produce two other projects for De Laurentiis: the first of these was a planned sequel, which due to the film's lack of success never went beyond the script stage.^[56] The other was a more personal work, based upon a script that Lynch had been working on for some time. Developing from ideas that Lynch had had since 1973, the resulting film, Blue Velvet, was set in the fictional town of Lumberton, USA, and revolves around a college student named Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), who finds a severed ear in a field. Subsequently investigating further with the help of friend Sandy (Laura Dern), he uncovers that it is related to a criminal gang led by psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), who has kidnapped the husband and child of singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and repeatedly subjects her to rape. Lynch himself characterizes the story as "a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story."^[63]

For the film, Lynch decided to include pop songs from the 1950s, including "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, the latter of which was largely inspirational for the film, with Lynch stating that "It was the song that sparked the movie… There was something mysterious about it. It made me think about things. And the first things I thought about were lawns – lawns and the neighbourhood."^[64] Other music for the film was also produced, this time composed by Angelo Badalamenti, who would go on to produce the music for most of Lynch’s subsequent cinematic works.^[65] Dino de Laurentiis loved the film, and it achieved support from some of the early specialist screenings, but the preview screenings to a mainstream audience were instead highly negative, with most of the audience hating the film.^[66] Although Lynch had found success previously with The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet's controversy with audiences and critics introduced him into the mainstream, and became a huge critical and moderate commercial success. The film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Woody Allen, whose film Hannah and Her Sisters was nominated for Best Picture, said that Blue Velvet was his favorite film of the year.^[67]

[edit] Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart and Fire Walk With Me: 1987–1996

Lynch at the 1990 Emmy Awards ceremony.

During the late 1980s, Lynch had begun to work in television as well as cinema, directing a short piece entitled The Cowboy and the Frenchman for French television in 1989.^[68] Around this time, he met the television producer Mark Frost, who had formerly worked on such projects as the television police series Hill Street Blues, and they decided to start working together on a biopic of singer and actress Marilyn Monroe based upon Anthony Summers's book, The Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. While this project never got off the ground, the duo went on to work on a comedy script entitled One Saliva Bubble, but that did not see completion either.^[69][70] It was while they were talking in a coffee shop that Lynch and Frost both had the idea of a corpse washing up on the shore of a lake, and using this image as a basis subsequently set about on their third project, which they initially named Northwest Passage but which would eventually come to fruition as the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991).^[71] A drama series set in a small Washington town where popular high school student Laura Palmer has been raped and murdered, Twin Peaks featured FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) as the investigator trying to unearth the killer, and discovering not only the supernatural elements to the murder but also the secrets of many of the local townsfolk – as Lynch himself summed it up, "The project was to mix a police investigation with the ordinary lives of the characters." In plotting out the series, Lynch later related that "[Mark Frost and I] worked together, especially in the initial stages. Later on we started working more apart." They subsequently pitched the series to the ABC Network, who agreed to finance the pilot episode, and once this was completed they also commissioned the first season, which comprised seven episodes.^[72]

A second season went into production soon after, which would last for a further 22 episodes. In all, Lynch himself only directed six episodes out of the whole series due to other responsibilities, namely his work on the film Wild at Heart (see below), but carefully chose those other directors whom he entrusted with the job.^[73] Meanwhile, Lynch also appeared in several episodes of the series, acting in the role of deaf FBI agent Gordon Cole. The series was a success, with high viewing figures both in the United States and in many nations abroad, and soon spawned a cult following. Nonetheless, the executives at the ABC Network, believing that public interest in the show was decreasing, insisted that Lynch and Frost reveal who the killer of Laura Palmer was prematurely, something that they only begrudgingly agreed to do,^[74] and Lynch has always felt that agreeing to do so is one of his biggest professional regrets.^[75] Following the revealing of the murderer and the series' move from Thursday to Saturday night on the ABC Network, Twin Peaks continued on for several more episodes, but following a ratings drop was cancelled. Lynch, who disliked the direction that the writers and directors had taken in the previous few episodes, chose to direct the final episode, which he ended on a cliffhanger, later stating that "that's not the ending. That's the ending that people were stuck with."^[76]

While Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and the composer Angelo Badalamenti, who had been responsible for the music in Twin Peaks, to create a theatrical piece which would only be performed twice at their academy in New York City in 1989 as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, which starred such frequent Lynch collaborators as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Anderson as well as containing five songs sung by Julee Cruise. David Lynch produced a fifty-minute video of the performance in 1990.^[77] Meanwhile, Lynch was also involved in the creation of various commercials for different companies, including perfume companies like Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani and for the Japanese coffee company Namoi, the latter of which involved a Japanese man searching the town of Twin Peaks for his missing wife.^[78]