Please Rewind Talent Wall

Al Strobel

Al Strobel (1940–2022) found his defining screen role as Philip Gerard in Twin Peaks, bringing a concentrated, unsettling presence to a series built around faces that seemed to carry entire hidden histories. Remarkably, he was cast without an audition or even a meeting with David Lynch. Strobel later appeared in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and eventually came out of retirement to reprise Gerard in the 2017 Showtime revival. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, on January 28, 1940, Strobel lost his left arm at the shoulder in a car accident when he was 17. His acting life developed far from the usual industry route. In Eugene, Oregon, he starred in scores of local productions from the late 1960s through the early 1980s, including Romeo and Juliet and Oklahoma! While living in Oregon during the early 1970s, he also worked in theatre at the University of Oregon and co-founded the Church of the Creative. Strobel’s interest in performance extended beyond the stage. He was the star, producer and principal creative force behind a television dramatization of Anton Chekhov’s Swansong, which aired on Oregon educational television. At the Grateful Dead’s August 27, 1972, concert in Veneta, he shot video that later appeared in the concert film Sunshine Daydream. Outside the Twin Peaks world, Strobel had roles in Shadow Play, Megaville, Ricochet River and the television movie Child of Darkness, Child of Light. He had retired by 2005 and was living in Eugene, but his connection to Twin Peaks endured. In 2015, he joined other cast members in a video supporting Lynch after the director’s departure from the planned revival. Lynch returned, and so did Strobel—closing his screen career by revisiting the role that had made him widely known.