Anecdotes

Cruise's delicate vocals provided a dreamy and eerie counterpoint to the lush orchestrations of Angelo Badalamenti, the composer who was a chief collaborator of film director David Lynch.

Marcia Wallace (Bob Newhart's TV secretary) was her childhood babysitter.

In the 1990s, she was a touring member of The B-52s, filling in for Cindy Wilson.

Julee has a degree in French Horn from Drake University and has played with a number of symphony orchestras.

Her husband, Edward Grinnan, is editor-in-chief of Guideposts Magazine.

Became friends with Angelo Badalamenti while working on a show in NY city.

In 1990, the singer appeared alongside Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as a character named "The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman" in Lynch's theater production, Industrial Symphony No 1.

Cruise was drawn to the arts at an early age, acting and playing the French horn while in high school. After graduating from Drake University, she spent time with the Des Moines Symphony but felt pulled toward the theatrical stage.

Was an American musician, singer, songwriter and actress, best known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

She lived in New York City in 2007.

On March 28, 2018, Cruise announced on her Facebook page that she had systemic lupus, which caused her considerable pain and affected her ability to walk and stand.

She had struggled with "lupus, depression and alcohol and drug addiction" in the past.

Cruise is best known for her 1989 single "Falling", the theme song for the television series Twin Peaks in which she also had minor appearances as a roadhouse singer, later repeated in the 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and the 2017 revival series Twin Peaks: The Return.

She moved to New York and played Janis Joplin in a revue called Beehive, while also working with Angelo Badalamenti.

Cruise appeared on Saturday Night Live on May 12, 1990, filling in along with Spanic Boys[19] on short notice when scheduled performer Sinéad O'Connor refused to appear on the same show as guest host Andrew Dice Clay. Cruise performed "Falling".

She attempted suicide by hanging after a long battle with lupus and depression on June 7, 2022. Her husband had discovered her and contacted emergency services where they saved her. She was on life support for two days at the hospital. They removed her off life support. While she was transitioning, her husband played the B52s song, "Roam.".

She appeared as Andy Warhol (among other characters, including Susan Sontag) in the 2004 Keith Haring bio-musical Radiant Baby at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, directed by George C. Wolfe.

Cruise was photographed in London by the fashion photographer Matt Colombo in an editorial that appeared in issue no. 49 of Zoo Magazine in 2015.

She released four albums beginning with 1989's Floating into the Night.

Cruise was also a stage actress and appeared in the Broadway musical Return to the Forbidden Planet and the bio-musical Radiant Baby in 2004.

In 1991, she covered Elvis Presley's "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" for the soundtrack of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World.

She was a lifelong dog lover.

Upon her death, she was cremated. Her ashes are with her husband, Edward Grinnan.

She was a licensed pilot.

She announced that she had systematic lupus in March 2018 and retired from public appearances. She spent the last four years of her life at her home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.

She died at Pittsfield hospital in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Began singing professionally at age 11.

Her final album, My Secret Life, was released in 2011.

She also had depression.

She performed as a singer and actress in Minneapolis with the Children's Theater Company (notably in the role of Jinjur in stage adaptations of L. Frank Baum's Oz books).

She also featured in Lynch and Badalamenti's avant-garde 1990 theater production Industrial Symphony No. 1, which was filmed and released on home media.

She was the daughter of Dr. John Welsh Cruise and Wilma Hill Cruise. She was the sister of Anthony Cruise, Michael Cruise and Kate Cruise Coen.

She was diagnosed with Lupus in college.

She was a fan of the series, "Law & Order.".

She met composer, Angelo Badalamenti, in a musical workshop entitled "The Boy in The Live Country Band" in the East Village in New York City.