American composer Angelo Badalamenti, author of the languid soundtrack to David Lynch's cult series Twin Peaks, died at the age of 85, according to American media on Monday, December 12. His death, at his family home in New Jersey, was confirmed by his niece to The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter.
Born in 1937 in New York, he studied classical music. In 1986, he began working with filmmaker David Lynch on the highly acclaimed Blue Velvet, a collaboration he would continue on feature films with Wild at Heart, Lost Highway and The Straight Story. He even played a gangster in the thriller Mulholland Drive, for which he also wrote the music.
But his probably best-known work with the American director was for the Twin Peaks series. Angelo Badalamenti wrote a suspended, calm and sinister theme, to match the"disturbing strangeness" that David Lynch excels in creating in a small imaginary town bordered by giant pines in which telephones ring in the void. Angelo Badalamenti also composed for Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, David Bowie and Paul McCartney.