‘Mulholland Drive’ Singer Rebekah Del Rio Dies at 57
Rebekah Del Rio, a singer-songwriter best known for her performance of “Llorando” in director David Lynch‘s 2001 film Mulholland Drive, died at her Los Angeles home on June 23, according to the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office. No cause of death has been given.
Born in Chula Vista, California, in 1967, Del Rio received local acclaim, before moving to Los Angeles in 1989 in pursuit of a music career. She recorded her original version of “Llorando,” a Spanish-language cover of Roy Orbison‘s “Cryin’,” in 1995 — the song was originally intended to convey her devastation over the murder of pop star Selena.
A mid-’90s sojourn in Nashville led to a country album and planned tour, but a massive car wreck led Del Rio to cancel the tour to focus on physical rehabilitation; a planned second country album was cancelled by her label.
Her collaboration with Lynch began after they were set up on a meeting by a mutual agent. Del Rio popped by Lynch’s house, where he invited her to check out a vintage recording booth he owned. Del Rio sang her signature tune but “I was absolutely unaware he was recording,” she told The Guardian in 2022. Lynch later developed the famous scene, which stars Del Rio as a nightclub singer known only as “La Llorona de Los Ángeles,” based around Del Rio’s recording.
That improvised vocal take is what ended up in Mulholland Drive, a film that represented a massive cultural comeback for Lynch, and a breakthrough for Del Rio. She later toured, and sang onscreen again in maverick Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s sophomore effort, Southland Tales.
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Del Rio again collaborated with Lynch on his 2017 series Twin Peaks: The Return, performing one of the show’s episode-ending songs while accompanied by Moby on guitar.
Del Rio had one son, Phillip C. DeMars, who died of cancer in 2009 at 23.