Angelo Badalamenti

Best known for his collaborations with David Lynch, most notably the dreamy, haunting music for the director's cult TV soap opera, "Twin Peaks" (1990-91). After completing his classical training, Badalamenti worked as a Borscht Belt pianist in the 1950s, as a jingle writer and as an arranger-songwriter for performers as diverse as Mel Tillis and Shirley Bassey. As Andy Badale he wrote the songs for the 1973 film "Gordon's War" and the score for "Law and Disorder" (1974).

Although he continued composing, Badalamenti saw his career take off when he was hired as Isabella Rossellini's vocal coach and subsequently wrote the atmospheric score for Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986). He has continued a long association with the director, including scoring TV commercials and films like "Lost Highway" (1997). Badalamenti's non-Lynch credits include "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" (1989), but he seems most at home with darker fare like the noirish "Tough Guys Don't Dance" (1987) and "The Comfort of Strangers" (1990), the black comedy "Parents" (1989) and the phantasmagoric "The City of Lost Children" (1995). Angelo Badalamenti died on December 11, 2022 in NJ at the age of 85.