Julee Cruise, who has taken her own life at the age of 65 after a long period of illness and depression, was famed for the spectral calmness of her voice, as demonstrated on the four solo albums she made between 1989 and 2011 and by her many collaborations with a variety of other artists.
She was launched into the spotlight through her partnership with the composer Angelo Badalamenti and the film director David Lynch, with whom she first worked on Lynch’s film Blue Velvet (1986). Lynch and Badalamenti conceived the song Mysteries of Love for the soundtrack when they were unable to afford the rights for This Mortal Coil’s version of Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren. The result was a mesmerising, slow-motion masterpiece, its tapestry of strings and synthesisers hanging in space as Cruise’s voice haunted the arrangement like a distant ghost.
The trio reconvened to record Cruise’s debut album Floating Into the Night (1989), a skilful mix of retro 1950s-style influences with dreamy and mysterious textures, all focused around Cruise’s shimmering vocals. The track Falling, with its ominous electric guitar twangs, became a cult phenomenon after Lynch used an instrumental version of it as the theme for his groundbreaking TV show Twin Peaks in 1990. As Falling went to No 7 and No 11 in the UK and US singles charts respectively, Cruise, who was working as a waitress at the time, suddenly found celebrity thrust upon her, not least via an invitation to appear on the TV show Saturday Night Live.
Other songs from the album were used in Twin Peaks and also in Lynch’s Industrial Symphony No. 1, an avant-garde concert performance staged in 1989 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, in which Cruise appeared with the actors Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and Michael J Anderson. Her part called for her to hang 80ft above the stage wearing a prom dress.
Cruise made an appearance in the Twin Peaks’ pilot episode singing Falling, and featured in later instalments as a singer in the Roadhouse bar. She would also appear in its later iterations, the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017). “In the ruckus of beers flying through the air at The Roadhouse, we have Julee singing a beautiful, slow-tempo song, and it’s so outrageous,” Badalamenti said of her role. “The songs with Julee serve a two-fold purpose: they contrast the visuals and they set the tone for the show.”
She told the NME: “The way I see it is David [Lynch] is very talented and he’s formed a company of actors around him which he uses over and over again … I see myself as the musical wing of that company.”
Born in Creston, Iowa, she was the daughter of John Cruise, the town dentist, and his wife, Wilma, his office manager. “I was a kinda late bloomer, I didn’t go out with boys at high school,” she said. “I was the most popular girl in school, but I was one of those girls that wasn’t easy, so nobody would go out with me.”
She took a music degree in the french horn at Drake University in Des Moines. After graduation she opted to pursue a career in singing and acting rather than classical music. Moving to Minneapolis, she spent several years performing with the Children’s Theater Company before relocating to New York in the early 80s. She played Janis Joplin in a revue called Beehive, and appeared in productions of Little Shop of Horrors and A Little Night Music. She first met Badalamenti after she was cast in a country and western musical. “I was a chorus girl with a big skirt and a big wig, singing way too loud,” she recalled. “Angelo was doing the music for the show, and we became friends.”
Cruise’s second album, The Voice of Love (1993), was a further collaboration with Lynch and Badalamenti, much in the same vein as its predecessor. It was not until 2002 that she recorded another solo album, The Art of Being a Girl, this time collaborating with the producer JJ McGeehan, who co-wrote some of the material. Its mix of lilting jazz and cabaret styles with a discreet side order of electronica proved that Cruise was capable of far more than being a mouthpiece for Lynch and Badalamenti.
Almost a decade passed before she made her final album, My Secret Life (2011), a collaboration with DJ Dmitry from Deee-lite. Alongside hip-hop beats and electronic treatments, her voice retained its ethereal mystique.
Among numerous other projects across her career, Cruise (with Lynch and Badalamenti) recorded a version of Elvis Presley’s Summer Kisses, Winter Tears for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ film Until the End of the World (1991), and she toured with the B-52’s for most of the 90s while their vocalist Cindy Wilson took a sabbatical – a period which, according to her husband, the author and publisher Edward Grinnan, was “the happiest time of her performing life”.
She also performed regularly with Bobby McFerrin’s vocal group Voicestra, and other artists she collaborated with included Moby, Pharrell Williams, the Welsh electronic band Hybrid and the ambient duo Delerium. Her music has been used in TV shows including CSI: Miami and House.
She had been suffering from lupus for several years before her death, and had problems with drugs and alcohol. She is survived by her husband.
• Julee Anne Cruise, singer, songwriter and actor, born 1 December 1956; died 9 June 2022
