Twin Peaks' Log Lady Dies

Actress Catherine Coulson, best known for playing the Log Lady (the character was named "Margaret Lanterman") on David Lynch's Twin Peaks, died of cancer, on Monday, September 28, 2015, in Ashland, Oregon, where she was born on October 22, 1943. She was 71.

Coulson was once interviewed about her Log Lady role, and described her Margaret Lanterman character as the “only normal person on the show,” but qualified that she’s “had some trauma and bonded with this Ponderosa pine,” according to Variety.

It has been reported that Catherine Coulson has already been shot for several episodes of the new series of Twin Peaks.

Coulson first collaborated with Lynch on a short film in 1974 [The Amputee], then again on the 1977 film Eraserhead. Over a decade later, she would work with Lynch again on Twin Peaks as the enigmatic Log Lady, a role she reprised in [the 1992 movie] Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and for the new Showtime revival of the series [now due in 2017], though there is no word as to how involved she was, as filming just started.
The noted stage actress also “reprised” her Log Lady role for the "Psych" Twin Peaks episode Dual Spires, though there she was called “Wood Woman.”
She is survived by her husband Marc Sirinsky and daughter Zoey. Source.

Coulson was David Lynch's assistant director for Eraserhead. In 1968, she married lead Eraserhead actor Jack Nance. But they divorced in 1976. Her second husband, Marc Sirinsky, is a rabbi, at one point resident at Temple Emek-Shalom in Ashland, Oregon.

Jack Nance 

December 21, 1943 - December 30, 1996 

Jack Nance is best known for the starring role of Henry Spence in the David Lynch film Eraserhead. For the part he was reportedly paid $25 a week. He appeared in almost every Lynch film after that, and also as Pete Martell in the television show Twin Peaks.

After Coulson, Nance later married ill-fated actress Nancee Kelly, who was Jerry Van Dyke's daughter. His second wife, Kelly Van Dyke, aka Nancee Kelly, died by suicide by hanging on November 17, 1991. According to his younger brother Richard Nance, Jack, who was in Bass Lake, California, filming Meatballs 4 at the time, attempted to console her on the phone as she threatened suicide. A lightning storm knocked out the phones in Oregon, subsequently taking over 45 minutes for Nance and the director, Bobby Logan, to find a deputy sheriff who contacted Los Angeles police and the apartment manager. They broke into the cabin and found that she had hanged herself.

Nance died in South Pasadena, California on December 30, 1996 under mysterious circumstances. Nance told friends he had been beaten by a young man outside a Winchell's Donuts store in early hours of December 29.
Later that day, he lunched with friends Leo Bulgarini and Catherine Case. Nance had a visible "crescent shaped bruise" under his eye and when asked about it, he related to them the story about the fight. He soon went home, complaining of a headache. The injuries he received caused a subdural hematoma, resulting in his death the following morning. Nance died alone in his apartment. His body was discovered on the bathroom floor by Bulgarini. An autopsy revealed that the actor's blood alcohol level was .24 percent at the time of his death. A subsequent police investigation failed to find evidence of the alleged fight. Source.

Nance actually lived and died on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena. That is also the site of the old Historic Route 66, which was changed to SR 118, which used to extend past I-210 on Foothill Boulevard through Sunland, Tujunga, La Crescenta and La Cañada, then across the Arroyo Seco into Pasadena, California, where SR 118 ran on Lincoln Avenue and Fair Oaks Avenue, ending at Colorado Blvd (Alternate US 66). The original routing across the Arroyo Seco ran along La Cañada Verdugo Road (now Oak Grove Drive), which crossed the arroyo along the crest of Devil's Gate Dam.

Route 66 and the Devil's name game applies to this history too.

Another Killing At Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks had another shooting on August 19, 2015. It happened in the 20900 block of I-45, 20931 Gulf Freeway, in Webster, Texas, around 10:28 p.m. Wednesday. Most of the shooting took place in the parking lot.

Law enforcement officers surrounded the Twin Peaks restaurant in Webster after shots were fired during a fight, which left one dead and another wounded. Two groups of people were reportedly involved in the fight, which led to a man pulling out a gun and opening fire.

A mother at the scene said she tried to protect her son and his friend as an argument began.

The shooter fled with two other men. All three were later located in nearby Alvin, Texas, and were taken into custody for questioning.

It will be recalled that nine people were killed Sunday, May 17, 2015, in a shooting among rival motorcycle gang members in Waco, Texas, at a Twin Peaks (so-called) "breastaurant."

The David Lynch series, Twin Peaks, is returning to Showtime in 2016.

FLW's Ennis House and Hollywood Movies

Update: In HBO's Game of Thrones, guess whose influence, via a specific design, showed up in Meereen?

Earlier....

Firefly was the American space western television (2002) that obtained a vast following, despite being cancelled after only 11 of the 15 produced episodes. It followed with a film, Serenity in 2005. As can be seen here, the Ennis House served as the backdrop of their publicity shots, via massive photoshopping.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House has been used by Hollywood filmmakers for decades. The house's design and textiles inspired synchromystic scenes in Mulholland Drive, The Rocketeer, House on Haunted Hill, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Predator 2, Beverly Hills Cop II, and most importantly, Blade Runner. David Lynch filmed his fictional soap opera, Invitation to Love, within Twin Peaks, within the Ennis House.

The Ennis House and Vincent Price appeared in House on Haunted Hill.

Michael Douglas' 1989 yakuza movie Black Rain also used the Ennis House. Source.

On February 25, 2014, Department of Art and Art History at St. Mary's College of Maryland's Scott Frank, Ph. D., gave a lecture entitled "Dreams and Realities of Frank Lloyd Wright: An Examination of Los Angeles' Charles Ennis House."
"As a way to explore these issues, Dr. Frank will focus on Wright's Charles Ennis House, located in Los Angeles, which has been a residence, an historic building, and has also served as the location for over eighty screen appearances for TV, music videos, and several films including Blade Runner (1982), Rush Hour (1995), and Firefly (2005). Source.

The Ennis House has been estimated to be worth in the $14 million range. But why spend that much if you want your own copy of it?

On March 1, 2014, it was announced by InFocusTech that they have produced an exacting replica of FLW's Ennis House.

Here's their description of the miniature building:

Ennis House is located at 2607 Glendower Ave in Los Angeles and was completed in 1924. This building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and represents Mayan revival architecture. This pewter replica’s base measures 5-1/4 inches by 2-7/8 inches and is finished in antique pewter.

You can reasonably secure your copy of the Ennis House. This is a desirable item, if you are a collector of replicas, a fan of the movies, or a combination of the two. Ordering information is here. (Mention you heard about it from "Loren Coleman.")

More in-depth background about the building and its links to modern Hollywood follows:

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House was formerly called the Ennis-Brown House.

Although originally and currently known as the Ennis House, the building was long known as the Ennis-Brown House. This became its name in 1980 when it was renamed in appreciation of its donation to the Trust for Preservation of Cultural Heritage by Augustus O. Brown, the eighth owner from 1968–1980. In August 2005, the house was returned to its original name, and the Trust for Preservation of Cultural Heritage was renamed the Ennis House Foundation.

The Ennis House in Los Angeles was used in one drive up scene, and as the studio inspiration for shooting in Rick Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner. The style of this house was Mayan Revival, and the Mayan influence is undeniably strong in the employment of the glyphs throughout. (For more on the Mayan angle in Blade Runner, see here.)

Deckard's apartment, drawn by set designer Charles William Breen and built on stage at Warner Brothers, was absolutely and directly inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House.

Breen actually had plaster casts taken from the textile blocks of the Wright-designed house and used them for the walls in the stage set.

Additionally, the Ennis House was briefly the home of famed esoteric author Manly P. Hall, (see here). Also the Ennis-Brown House was used in the Disney film The Rocketeer as the home of Neville Sinclair, Nazi spy. Howard Hughes was a prominent character in the film. [Thanks M.]

In the Lee Tamahori-directed Mulholland Falls (1996), Rocketeer star Jennifer Connelly plays a fictionalized Black Dahlia (an aspiring actress, Allison Pond), in which radioactive glass is found at her feet, leading the detectives to the Nevada Atomic Testing Site. [Thanks E.D.]

In 1999, during shooting, movie director David Lynch created the Club Silencio as a location in his surreal classic Mulholland Drive (2001). Tile casts of the block relief ornamentation from Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House were used for the Club Silencio doorframe. In 2011, Lynch opened a real-life nightclub in Paris named Club Silencio, inspired by the one in his film.

Governor's Palace at Uxmal

Wright designed the Ennis House in 1923, and built it in 1924. He based the relief ornamentation on its textile blocks, inspired by the symmetrical reliefs of the Mayan buildings at Uxmal.

The Ennis House was in shambles before the 2007 restoration began.

Newly restored.

More on the David Lynch use of the Ennis House (below) for his filming of the internal soap opera, Invitation to Love, in Twin Peaks, see here.

Alan Green writes:

Look closely at this shot from Beverly Hills Cop II. The movie takes place on 9/11, the Federal Reserve gets robbed, but it is a false flag operation run by an oil tycoon who uses it to sell weapons. (Directed by Tony Scott, Ridley Scott's brother.)

Author Robert Schneck also shared the following with me about this building: 

The Ennis-Brown House was used for exerior shots in the William Castle (born 'Schloss' = 'castle') movie House on Haunted Hill. It featured an eccentric millionaire named Frederick Loren (played by Vincent Price), a death by hanging (the incredibly beautiful Carol Ohmart), a decapitation, an acid pit, and various morbid touches, including dripping bloodstain on the ceiling, guests arriving for a party in funeral cars, a little row of coffins containing guns, and lots of ghosts. A remake appeared in 1999 but they didn't use a Wright house....William Castle, incidentally leads to Rosemary's Baby (he produced the movie), which leads to the Dakota, which leads to John Lennon's murder, and who knows where else?

Below is a replica of the Dakota. As with the Ennis House replica, if you end up ordering the Dakota, do mention "Loren Coleman" in the comment section. Thank you.

For more about the history of the Dakota, see here.