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Catherine Coulson AKA 'Log Lady' Of 'Twin Peaks' Dies At 71
Catherine Coulson, famously known as the iconic "Log Lady" in Twin Peaks, has died at the age of 71.
The actress, who was supposed to reprise her role of Margaret Lanterman (AKA Log Lady) in the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks on Showtime, died after a battle with cancer, Variety reports (via Oregon's KOBI-TV).
Coulson's rep sent Zap2It a statement from the show's creator, David Lynch:
Today I lost one of my dearest friends, Catherine Coulson. Catherine was solid gold. She was always there for her friends—she was filled with love for all people—for her family—for her work. She was a tireless worker. She had a great sense of humor—she loved to laugh and make people laugh. She was a spiritual person—a longtime TM meditator. She was the Log Lady.
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Coulson also brought back her quirky role as the Log Lady in the 1992 feature Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. However, her connection to Lynch went much further back than this series. She's known Lynch since 1971, and served as the assistant director to Lynch on Eraserhead, and was also actress portraying an amputee in his 1974 short film, The Amputee. Around the time of Eraserhead, she got into transcendental meditation like Lynch did, according to TV Guide.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last December, she described her Log Lady character as the "only normal person on the show," and that she's "had some trauma and bonded with this ponderosa pine."
She added that Lynch asked her to take care of the log after the show with a cult-following ended, and that it's in a "secure undisclosed location" with a humidifier. There were scant details about what exactly her Log Lady would be doing in the Twin Peaks revival, but she did say Lynch suggested she "talk about sustainable forestry."
Here's a video from the 1993 Twin Peaks Festival, where she gave a hilarious interview about the log:
Mark Frost, the co-creator of Twin Peaks, tweeted this out today:
🌲😪 #twinpeaks
— Mark Frost (@mfrost11) September 29, 2015
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Coulson most recently appeared in an episode of IFC's Portlandia, and in Psych as the Log Lady in the show's tribute to Twin Peaks. After moving to Oregon, she acted in a number of plays in Ashland's Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Coulson is survived by her husband Marc Sirinsky and daughter Zoey.
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