Actor shot to fame in the 1960s playing a hippie undercover cop and returning to television with David Lynch’s cult series

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Peggy Lipton, a star of the groundbreaking late 1960s TV show The Mod Squad and the 1990s show Twin Peaks, has died of cancer aged 72.

Lipton died surrounded by her family, her daughters, Rashida and Kidada Jones, said in a statement.

“We are heartbroken that our beloved mother passed away from cancer today,” they said. “She made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side. We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her. We can’t put all of our feelings into words right now but we will say: Peggy was, and will always be our beacon of light, both in this world and beyond. She will always be a part of us.”

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Lipton played one of a trio of Los Angeles undercover “hippie cops” on The Mod Squad, which aired on ABC.

The Los Angeles Times says it was one of pop culture’s first efforts to reckon seriously with the counterculture and one of the first TV shows to feature an interracial cast. Lipton was nominated for Emmys and won a Golden Globe in 1971 for her performance. The show addressed issues such as the Vietnam war, drugs and domestic violence.

Lipton married music producer Quincy Jones in 1974 and they had two daughters. The couple divorced in 1989.

In the 1990s she played the role of Norma Jennings in David Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks, reviving the role for Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017.

“It was very scary,” Lipton told The Times in a 1993 interview. “I had a push-pull thing inside me that I wanted to do it. I had become so insulated in my world as a mother, that I didn’t know how to pick up the phone and call anybody to put myself out there.”