Biography

Coulson's Twin Peaks story began in the '70s, when she spent about four years working on David Lynch's directorial debut Eraserhead. Officially, Coulson is credited as the movie's assistant director. She also worked as a waitress and donated her income to the movie's perpetually vanishing budget. And she was married to Eraserhead star Jack Nance.

Forever identified as the log-carrying lady on the cult Twin Peaks (1990) series.

She was one of the first women on camera crews in Los Angeles.

On Coulson's gravestone, above her English name (Catherine Elizabeth Coulson), her Hebrew name (Chana Elisheva), her birth and death years (1943-2015) and the words "Daughter, Sister, Mother, Friend" is an engraved line-art image of two hands cradling a log--a tribute to her iconic role as Margaret Lanterman / The Log Lady on Twin Peaks.

She is a monastic figure, but Coulson plays her with a fussy drollness. There's a great scene in the second episode of Twin Peaks, when she tells Cooper about the evening of Laura Palmer's death. "My log saw something that night," she says. Cooper: "What did it see?" Log Lady: "Ask it." Cooper has no idea what do to. The Log Lady says, simply: "I thought so," and walks away. The Log Lady became a cult figure, partially because it's hard to say how important she actually was to the show. She doesn't do very much, but she seems to know everything: In Lynch's cosmology, this might make her God, the Devil, or something more powerful. In a recent interview, Coulson described the Log Lady as "the only sane person in Twin Peaks." That sounds right, too.