Nostalgia: Twin Peaks, part 3: Sheryl Lee

Unlike Madchen Amick and Sherilyn Fenn, Sheryl Lee never broke through with an all-time classic nude scene, but damn, did she do a lot of them! Her first one was in 1992, in the Twin Peaks prequel film. That was certainly appropriate since David Lynch discovered her. For the Twin Peaks series, Lynch needed a dead woman wrapped in plastic who would also appear in some grainy, silent home movies. To save money he wanted to use a local theater actress. That path led him to Lee. Lynch liked her so much that he wrote flashback scenes for her, then created another role for her as a twin cousin of the deceased girl, and finally made her the star of the feature film. That launched Lee into a prolific film career.

Once Lee got started on nude scenes, there was no stopping her. Before the 90s had ended, she had churned out a dozen nude performances, despite missing the first two years of the decade! Interestingly, none of those scenes made much of an impression. The Scoopy era began in 1995, and we have the “Top 20 Nude Scenes of the Year” for every year in the era. Sheryl Lee did an amazing total of nine nude scenes in just the five years from 1995 to 1999, but not a single one of them ever made our top 20 in any year. (If we ever do a retro poll for 1994, she might make the list for a triple-b performance in Backbeat, but that’s no sure thing. The competition was tough in the 90s. She did not make the 1999 list for a full-frontal performance in Angel’s Dance.)

Although many of these films came from the hyphen world (straight-to-vid, made-for-cable), a few are worth watching. Links go to my reviews.

• Angel’s Dance is an offbeat comedy starring Jim Belushi as the Mr. Miyagi of hit men.
• Kiss the Sky is a film that is basically the story of my generation – idealistic student activists become suburban greedheads, and wish things had worked out another way.
• Backbeat is the story of Stu Sutcliffe – the man who wouldn’t be king (he left the Beatles to pursue painting).

Also in this series:

Part 1 covers Madchen Amick;

Part 2 covers Sherilyn Fenn

Part 4 covers Lara Flynn Boyle

Part 5 covers Joan Chen

Part 6 covers Heather Graham

Part 7 covers Anne Gaybis

Part 8 covers Moira Kelly

Incidentally, when I post these collections to the Fun House, there are film clips for all of the entries.