David Lynch was an artist first and a film-maker second, and his output ranged from paintings to photography, music and furniture design. Among his most infamous works were his 'kits' – pieces made in the late 1970s and early 80s in which parts of a real, dissected animal, first a fish and then a chicken, were pinned to a board with child-friendly instructions on how to reassemble and play with it. He later told an interviewer he was planning a mouse kit, with the parts bagged up in his freezer, though this never came to pass.
In 1981, Lynch spotted five stuffed Woody Woodpecker dolls hanging from a hook in a gas station window on Sunset Boulevard. He executed a sharp U-turn, bought them, and named them Bob, Dan, Pete, Buster and Chucko. He kept them in his office, saying they reminded him of a pervading happiness underneath everything. However, the dolls later began exhibiting traits that were 'not so nice', and Lynch and his boys parted ways.
After the success of The Elephant Man, Lynch was offered the chance to direct Return of the Jedi. He always maintained he called George Lucas to decline immediately, but according to writer Max Evry, discussions continued for some time and Lynch remained Lucas's top choice for several weeks before turning the project down when contracts for Dune came through.
During a recording session for a track on the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me soundtrack, Lynch laughed so hard at his friend and collaborator Angelo Badalamenti that he was hospitalised with a severe hernia. The track, 'A Real Indication', required Badalamenti to speak-sing Lynch's lyrics in a growling, over-enunciated accent, which Lynch found hysterical.
Lynch also pursued music in the 1990s and beyond. Among his more unusual collaborations was Lux Vivens, or Living Light, an album with Jocelyn Montgomery, formerly of Miranda Sex Garden. Montgomery was obsessed with the music of 12th-century German nun Hildegard Von Bingen, and the record featured choral hymns accompanied by drones built from violin, guitar and manipulated found sounds, including swords and bulls.
Having been suspicious of television in his younger years, Lynch later became a keen viewer of TV drama, a format he helped reinvent with Twin Peaks. His influence could be seen in shows from The Sopranos to Lost to Breaking Bad, which owed him a huge debt.
