TWIN PEAKS SEASON TWO PRESS KIT
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ABC CAPITAL CITIES/ABC, INC. TELEVISION NETWORK GROUP
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BIOGRAPHIES
"TWIN PEAKS"
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Welcome to Twin Peaks. It's one of those picturesque rural towns that reminds you of time-honored American traditions, like peace and order and homemade cherry pie. Visitors tend to marvel over the magnificent Douglas firs and admire the breathtaking mountain scenery. Located in the Pacific Northwest, just five miles south of the Canadian border, Twin Peaks looks like a prosperous community of contented citizens devoted to their families. On the surface, at least, it's a bucolic life.
But that's on the surface.
World-renowned director David Lynch ("Eraserhead," "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet") brings his incomparable visual artistry to "Twin Peaks," a disturbing mystery about the life of a seemingly typical small town. Co-created with executive producer Mark Frost ("Hill Street Blues"), "Twin Peaks" presents an unsettling, sometimes darkly comic vision of the ominous unknown lurking beneath the commonplace and the everyday. The nude body of Laura Palmer, the high school homecoming queen, emerges from beneath the surface of a nearby lake. Her sensational murder sends shock waves through Twin Peaks, stripping away the veneer of respectable gentility to expose seething undercurrents of illicit passion, greed, jealousy and intrigue in a population of unusual characters.
When another girl is found, viciously tortured but still alive, FBI agent Dale Cooper arrives in Twin Peaks to conduct an investigation. Young and sardonic, Agent Cooper has an almost prescient understanding of human motives and his own quirky but very methodical approach to doing business. He is also keeping whatever information he has about the crimes to himself. Cooper forms an immediate rapport with Sheriff Harry S. Truman, who has grown up in the community. Harry is not much of a talker, but he knows more about the people in that town than they probably know about themselves. Their search for the murderer leads to one shattering discovery: No one is quite what they appear to be and almost everyone has something to hide.
Cooper and Truman's probe into Laura's death uncovers many busy secrets in Twin Peaks. Was Laura leading a sordid double existence? Did she find out that her erstwhile boyfriend, Bobbie [sic] Briggs, was having an affair with a married woman? Why would well-respected businessmen scheme to take over the valuable Packard Sawmill property? Why is Catherine Martell so bitterly jealous of her brother's widow, the beautiful and imperious mill owner, Jocelyn Packard? Each revelation lays bare whole other worlds, as we delve deeper and deeper into the characters' fantasies, loves and obsessions.
Starring are Kyle MacLachlan ("Dune," "Blue Velvet") as FBI agent Dale Cooper, Michael Ontkean ("Maid to Order," "Slap Shot") as Sheriff Harry S. Truman, Piper Laurie ("Carrie," "Children of a Lesser God") as Catherine Martell, Joan Chen ("The Last Emperor") as Jocelyn Packard, Ma:dchen Amick as Shelly Johnson, Dana Ashbrook as Bobby Briggs, Richard Beymer as Benjamin Horne, Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward, Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne, Warren Frost as Dr. William Hayward, Peggy Lipton as Norma Jennings, James Marshall as James Hurley, Everett McGill as Ed Hurley, Jack Nance as Pete Martell, Kimmy Robertson as Lucy Moran and Ray Wise as Leland Palmer.
Also starring are Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, Eric Da Re as Leo Johnson, Harry Goaz as Deputy Andy Brennan, Michael Horse as Tommy "The Hawk" Hill and Sheryl Lee as Madeleine Ferguson.
Executive producers, creators and writers are Mark Frost and David Lynch. Gregg Fienberg is supervising producer, Harley Peyton is producer, Robert D. Simon is co-producer and Phillip Neel is associate producer. The one-hour dramatic series is filmed in locations in Washington and Southern California."Twin Peaks" is from Lynch/Frost Productions, Inc., in association with Propaganda Films in association with Worldvision Enterprises, Inc.
- 1990-91 -
THE CAST
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KYLE MacLACHLAN - FBI Agent Dale Cooper
{Agent Cooper has an almost prescient understanding of human motives. Calm and cool, he blends a methodical temperament with a taste for the unusual. He is entranced with the majestic country around Twin Peaks.}
Kyle MacLachlan and director David Lynch began a long-term friendship and working collaboration during the filming of the science-fiction classic, "Dune," in 1983. Their creative relationship continued with Kyle's leading role in Lynch's next feature, the critically acclaimed "Blue Velvet." ABC's "Twin Peaks" represents the third teaming of the talented actor and preeminent director, and marks Kyle's debut as a television series lead.
Kyle was born and raised in Yakima, Washington, the eldest of three sons. In 1977, he entered the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied in the Professional Actor Training Program. Following graduation with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he immediately joined the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. He returned to Seattle in 1982 to perform at the Empty Space Theater. While appearing on stage there, he auditioned for the film "Dune," was brought to Los Angeles to meet David Lynch, and soon plunged into a arduous, year-long production schedule in Mexico City.
In addition to "Blue Velvet," Kyle also starred in "The Hidden." He recently co-starred in the soon-to-be-released "The Boyfriend School," and also co-starred in an off-Broadway play, "The Palace of Amateurs," at New York's Minetta Lane Theater.
Kyle makes his home is Los Angeles. He enjoys traveling and recently returned from a month-long tour through Ireland, England and Scotland with his girlfriend. He also likes to play golf and pick-up basketball.
MICHAEL ONTKEAN - Sheriff Harry S. Truman
{Harry Truman grew up in Twin Peaks and heads the local sheriff's office.A reticent, self-sufficient man, he knows more about the people in the town than they probably know about themselves.}
Michael Ontkean grew up in French Canada playing ice hockey. Learning the game at its source in Montreal at the age of four was "like an early call to some sort of sub-zero priesthood. I rarely spoke. I was in a state of constant motion with perpetually frozen toes."
Michael's father, who was born in the coal fields of Alberta, was able to escape a life in the coal mines by becoming a boxer. When he met the woman who was to become Michael's mother, then an 18-year old stage actress, he decided to marry her and take up acting.
Ontkean spent most of his childhood on the ice. When his father died, he was more than able to support himself at the age of 14 by playing hockey. "In those days, you could get money under the table in the Junior Leagues in Canada. The trade-off was you had to quit high school at a certain point because the season was so long, and those bus rides went on forever."
After a particularly successful season in Junior "A" (the top rung on Canada's hockey ladder), Ontkean received dozens of scholarship offers from U.S. universities. He chose the University of New Hampshire and played right wing for all four years on the Wildcats' first line. In his junior year, he and his two linemates led the entire nation in scoring, with a total of 178 points.
In April of his senior year, Ontkean hitched a ride with two girlfriends from Boston who were making a mad dash for Southern California so they could "swim in the Pacific before they hit 20." The girls returned home, but Ontkean stayed on because he wanted to see the inside of a movie studio. On a lark, he bluffed his way onto the old Goldwyn lot in Hollywood, where he spotted the name of director Norman Jewison, also a Canadian. The young athlete presented himself for some sort of job. "Norman was great. He threw a script at me and told me to read the part of the young revolutionary in 'Fiddler on the Roof.'" At the end of this impromptu meeting, Jewison decided to give Ontkean a screen test. The young man didn't get the role, but two weeks later he found himself in Louisiana making his debut in "Bayou Boy," a television movie for Disney. A few weeks after that, Ontkean began work on his first feature film role, a starring one in "The Toy Factory," with the legendary Orson Welles.
Three more movies and a half dozen television shows came in quick succession, followed by two full seasons on ABC's "The Rookies." At that point, says Ontkean, "I just stepped off the show biz bus and changed gears." He moved to a small town on the Maine seacoast. For the next two-and-a-half years, he played music in local bars and hockey on local rinks while earning a living repairing motorcycles.
It was an idyllic time, and Ontkean might still be there if he hadn't heard that they were casting for a movie about hockey players called "Slap Shot." It was irresistible. After auditioning five times, he finally won the role of Paul Newman's sidekick.
"Slap Shot" caromed Ontkean right back into a busy acting career. with the upcoming "Postcards From the Edge," starring Meryl Streep and directed by Mike Nichols, his other feature film credits include "Clara's Heart," with Whoopi Goldberg, "Maid To Order," with Ally Sheedy, "Voices," with Amy Irving, "Making Love," with Kate Jackson, Paul Mazursky's "Willie & Phil," and "The Blood of Others," directed by Claude Chabrol and co-starring Jodie Foster. Some of his television credits include roles in "Kids Don't Tell" for CBS, and in ABC's "The Right of the People," a drama about gun control.
After living in New York for seven years and in Paris for two years, Ontkean now makes his home in Los Angeles. He's built his own recording studio, where he plays drums and jams with other musicians. There are motorcycles in the garage in various states of repair.
A devoted family man, Ontkean is married to artist-activist Jamie Smith Jackson. The couple has two daughters, a 10-year-old and a one-and-a-half year-old.
PIPER LAURIE - Catherine Martell
{Catherine Packard Martell is manager of operations at the Packard Sawmill and will do anything to wrest the valuable property away from her brother's widow, Jocelyn Packard. She is openly contemptuous of her husband, Pete. It seems that nothing can hurt her.}
An Emmy Award-winner and triple Oscar-nominee, screen favorite Piper Laurie began her career at Universal Studios, where she made her film debut in "Louisa," playing Ronald Reagan's daughter. She starred in 22 other Universal pictures, among them, "The Prince Who Was a Thief," with Tony Curtis.
Adventuresome and ready for wider opportunities as an actress, Ms. Laurie made the extremely risky decision to break her star contract. She left the sheltered studio life and went to New York to seek serious roles on live television. Among the memorable shows she starred in were the original Playhouse 90 productions of "Days of Wine and Roses," co-starring Cliff Robertson and directed by John Frankenheimer, for which she received the first of many Emmy nominations; and "The Ninth Day," also directed by John Frankenheimer. In addition, she starred in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams," with Anthony Perkins; the Studio One production of "The Deaf Heart," directed by Sidney Lumet, for which she received another Emmy nomination; "The Road That Led Afar," which resulted in her third Emmy nomination; "Winterset," a Hallmark production with George C. Scott and Don Murray; "The Changing Ways of Love," directed by Sidney Lumet, with Jason Robards and Rip Torn; "Caesar and Cleopatra," opposite Maurice Evans; and "Something About Lee Wiley," directed by Sidney Pollack.
During this time, she also appeared on the New York stage in "Rosemary" and "The Alligators," two one-act plays by Molly Kazan that were directed by Gerald Freedman. Ms. Laurie starred as well in the 20th anniversary Broadway production of "The Glass Menagerie." She returned to Hollywood to make "Until They Sail" with Paul Newman, the starred with Newman again in the film classic "The Hustler," in a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
After "The Hustler," Ms. Laurie retired from acting for a number of years and lived in Woodstock, New York, where she raised a daughter, Annie. In 1973, John Guare asked her to appear in his new play, "Marco Polo Sings a Solo," and thus she returned to the stage. She played in "The Innocents" in Chicago and in "Biography," the S.N. Behrman comedy, at the Manhattan Theater Club.
In 1976, Ms. Laurie returned to feature films in Brian De Palma's "Carrie," winning her second Academy Award nomination for her performance in that movie. She earned her third Oscar nomination for her work in "Children of a Lesser God." She starred opposite Mel Gibson in the Australian film, "Tim," and won Emmy nominations for portrayals on "The Thorn Birds," "St. Elsewhere" and "The Bunker." She received an Emmy for her performance in the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, "Promise," with James Garner and James Woods. Among her latest feature film credits are "Appointment With Death," "Tiger Warsaw," with Patrick Swayze and "Dream a Little Dream," with Jason Robards.
Recently, Ms. Laurie has been touring with "The Last Flapper." The one-woman play by William Luce is based on the life and writings of Zelda Fitzgerald and is directed by Charles Nelson Reilly.
In her free time, Ms. Laurie is a serious sculptor in marble, an art which she has pursued for many years. She came from a family of bakers and consequently loves to bake, especially breads.