David Lynch

Born: 20 January 1946
Where: Missoula, Montana, USA

Director Lynch spent his youth in Idaho, Washington and Virginia and found his true vocation in 1966 while attending Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

On the basis of The Alphabet, a five-minute short combining live action and animation, Lynch received a grant from the American Film Institute to make a 34-minute film, The Grandmother.

Over a five-year period, drawing on his own fears about the confinements of youthful marriage and fatherhood and working in and around the AFI's Center for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles, Lynch created Eraserhead, starring Jack Nance in his first of many collaborations with Lynch.

Mel Brooks saw the film and thought Lynch would be the perfect director to film a script Brooks wanted to produce about John Merrick.

The result was Lynch's The Elephant Man, a box-office success, earning eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Screenplay nominations for Lynch.

Offered the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, Lynch opted instead to advance his script Ronnie Rocket at Francis Coppola's Zoetrope Studios. When this project did not materialize, Lynch directed Dune, his first project with actor Kyle MacLachlan.

The film was a box-office failure, and feeling like "I had sort of sold myself out," Lynch later forced the removal of his name from the film's credits.

He was back on form with Blue Velvet, featuring Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper, and received a second Best Director Oscar nomination.

His 1990 Wild at Heart won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes, yet met with criticism back in the US. Lynch also directed the music video for Chris Isaak's song Wicked Game, which was featured in the film. He faired far better with his groundbreaking TV series Twin Peaks.

Lynch miscalculated when he returned for the feature Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Critics savaged it, audiences hissed at Cannes and U.S. moviegoers stayed away, proving that the Twin Peaks time had come and gone.

In 1999, Lynch made a TV pilot for Mulholland Drive, but the series was not picked up, and in the end he received additional funding to allow him to create a feature film that premiered at Cannes in 2001 where it shared the Best Director award.

Lynch has said that "finding love in hell" is a theme in all his movies.