In early May 1990, the first season of Twin Peaks was halfway finished. The show had taken the United States by storm and series’ actors were popping up in a variety of magazines. On May 7, 1990, People Weekly magazine published a short blurb about Dana Ashbrook who played Bobby Briggs in the show.
DANA ASHBROOK IN PEOPLE WEEKLY ON MAY 7, 1990
The brainchild of Andrew Heiskell, People Weekly was first published on March 4, 1974. He was the chief executive officer of Time Inc. and served as the former publisher of the weekly Life magazine. Richard Stolley, a former assistant managing editor at Life, was hired as the first managing editor of People Weekly. Interestingly, Stolley was the journalist who acquired the Zapruder film of the John F. Kennedy assassination for Time Inc. in 1963 Maybe he can answer Agent Cooper’s question from episode 1.001 about “who really pulled the trigger on JFK.”
In the premier issue, Stolley described the weekly magazine as “getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues.”
Sixteen years later, People Weekly was continuing that vision by featuring Marla Maples on the cover. At the time, she was in the news because she was dating a future convicted felon, rapist and bigot. They were married from 1993-1999 and had one daughter.
CHATTER BAY PETER CASTRO – TWIN PIQUES WITH DANA ASHBROOK
On page 202, Peter Castro’s column “Chatter” included a number of short blurbs about Hugh Hefner, direcor Jonathan Demme, Frances Bergen, Princess Anne and Dana Ashbrook.
Castro began his column in 1987 shortly after joining the magazine. Today, he is the Deputy Managing Editor of People magazine, a job held since late 2007. He was named managing editor of People en Español in August 2006.
His blurb about Dana Ashbrook was titled “Twin Piques,” a play on the show’s title.
“Twin Peaks punk DANA ASHBROOK, who plays the incorrigible Bobby Briggs on ABC’s hot new series, is grappling with the consequences of television’s most tantalizing whodunit plot since J.R. was blasted on Dallas 10 years ago.
“Everyone wants to know, everyone, says Ashbrook, 22, referring to the murder of Laura Palmer, the local been queen.
“I mean my mom and dad call and say, ‘We gotta know who did it! We gotta know!’ I can’t tell them, and they get kind of peeved at me, but what can. I do? I know who did it, but I’m not telling them, no way. My dad’s a talker, and he’d probably spill the beans to his class [he is a drama teacher].”
Ashbrook confesses, however, to putting his girlfriend in the know.
“I have to live with her and sleep in the same bed with her, and if I didn’t tell her, I’d be out the door.”
At the time, Ashbrook’s girlfriend was Kathy MacQuarrie. He mentioned her during an interview with Mary Murphy for “TV Guide” issue from May 5-11, 1990
“Ashbrook has his own preferences [about women], which are rather different from Bobby’s. ‘I don’t think I ever really dated high-school girls. I always liked older women. Even his current girlfriend, actress / model Kathy MacQuarrie, he says is ‘a few years older.'”
The image used in the article is similar to this black and white shot of Ashbrook during filming of the Twin Peaks pilot in Snoqualmie Valley, Washington.
It was captured on February 21, 1989, the first day of shooting for the pilot outside the Mar-T Cafe in North Bend, Washington (known today as Twede’s Cafe). They were preparing to shoot the scene with Ashbrook and Mädchen Amick in Bobby’s car.
It’s interesting that Dana mentioned he knew who killed Laura Palmer as the second season had not been picked up when this interview ran on May 7. A few weeks later, ABC would green light more Twin Peaks which would be shot over the summer.
Perhaps Ashbrook was privy to this information, but it contradicts stories from Ray Wise, Richard Beymer, Mark Frost and others about how the killer was revealed to the actors.
Either way, this short blurb highlights the ferver around the central question to Lynch and Frost’s show – “Who killed Laura Palmer?”
