Farewell, Catherine Coulson

Coulson and Lynch on 
the set of Eraserhead.

Very sad news today: Catherine Coulson, the actress and camera person who became an icon for imparting enigmatic warnings while holding a baby-sized log on "Twin Peaks", has died of cancer at the age of 71. Coulson was one of the eaerliest denizens in Lynchland, helping filmmaker David Lynch make his brilliant debut Eraserhead (her official credit is "assistant camera," though she did a lot more than that, including taking part in some S&M shenanigans in a lost deleted scene). She then appeared in Lynch's short film "The Amputee", an absurdly comedic experiment with film stocks that found her writing a mundane letter while Nurse Lynch cleans her oozing leg stumps. 

However, Coulson would make her biggest impression on screen as Margaret Lanterman, better known as The Log Lady, on Lynch and Mark Frost's series "Twin Peaks". When the show became a phenomenon in 1990, the image of Coulson in her wool sweater holding her log of wisdom was nearly as pervasive in pop culture as that of Sheryl Lee's blue, plastic-wrapped face as Laura Palmer. When Lynch and Frost announced that they would be returning to "Twin Peaks" with a long-awaited third season this year, most fans probably assumed that Catherine Coulson would be lifting the log again. Sadly, that won't be the case. Today I'm sure her friends in the cast and crew have other things on their mind than the future of "Twin Peaks" anyway.