Vitals

Michael Ontkean as Harry S. Truman, small-town sheriff

Twin Peaks, Washington, February and March 1989

Series: Twin Peaks (Seasons 1-2)
Air Dates: April 8, 1990 to June 10, 1991
Created by: Mark Frost & David Lynch
Costume Design: Sara Markowitz (seasons 1-2) & Patricia Norris (pilot episode only)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

For Canadian actor Michael Ontkean’s 80th birthday, today’s post continues the Twin Peaks theme started this week with series co-creator David Lynch’s appearance as FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole. Born just four days after Lynch on January 24, 1946, Ontkean rose to fame through the 1970s on the TV series The Rookies and the 1977 sports comedy Slap Shot before he took on the role of the even-tempered Sheriff Harry S. Truman—no known relation to the president of the same name, though the sheriff does hang the 33rd president’s portrait in his office.

Though the series is arguably driven by the eccentric FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) as he investigates the death of local teen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Leo), Sheriff Truman is the first law enforcement officer we meet on screen, when he’s called to the scene after Pete Martell (John Nance) discovers Laura’s plastic-wrapped corpse washed up near the town’s equally doomed lumber mill on the morning of February 24, 1989.

Coop and Harry quickly establish a productive working relationship and friendship, with the subdued Harry often serving as the curiously amused straight man to Coop’s more intense idiosyncrasies. But Harry is hardly a square as he’s receptive to Coop’s intuitions (ultimately praising him as “the best lawman I’ve ever seen”), protective against aggressive outsiders like Coop’s colleague Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer), and engaged in one of the small Washington town’s many romantic affairs.

Ontkean did not return for the 2017 revival series, nor did his portrayal of Sheriff Truman make it to the final cut of the 1992 prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

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What’d He Wear?

The character looks for Twin Peaks were established in the pilot episode by costume designer Patricia Norris, whose vision was maintained as Sara Markowitz took over costume design for the remainder of the series and fleshed out each character’s dressing habits.

The pilot episode established the respective daily uniforms of lawmen in Twin Peaks, with FBI agents invariably dressed for duty in black suits with conservative shirts, ties, and trench coats, while the local deputies sport khaki shirts tonally matched to their brown ties, trousers, and satin-finished bomber jackets. Though he never wears a true uniform in the traditional sense, Sheriff Truman always dresses for duty in a khaki work-shirt and trousers echoing his deputies, personalizing it with a cowboy hat, engineer-style harness boots, the occasional sweater, and a distinctive flecked car coat.

The Flecked Jacket

Featured in nearly episode that he appears in, Harry’s outerwear is cut like a car coat with sport jacket-informed styling. The densely woven cloth shell suggests a tweedy wool brushed to a soft, slightly fuzzy nap that diffuses light rather than reflecting it sharply. The deep espresso-brown ground was likely woven with black blue fibers incorporated into the blend, deepening the tone but also oscillating toward a cooler indigo shade under certain light, angles, and exposures. The 1950s-style “atomic fleck” design, woven in flecks that gradate between rust-red and beige, nods to David Lynch’s characteristic references to mid-century Americana.

The thigh-length coat is lined in a white piled fleece for additional warmth against the chill of late winter in the Pacific Northwest. There are four buttons up the front, but Harry wears it open so regularly that the revers roll over most of the buttons; an additional buttonhole at the top ostensibly fastens the jacket at the neck below the convertible ulster-style collar. The set-in sleeves are finished with semi-strap tab cuffs that close through a single button, and there are short double vents cut along the rear of the skirt. The large patch pockets over the hips are covered with flaps, plus a smaller flapped ticket pocket on the right side, and a welted breast pocket where Harry clips his sheriff’s badge.

Car coats like this were prevalent through the mid-20th century, produced by companies like Pendleton Woolen Mills, Suburban Sportswear, and Wasbro New York, but the closest real-life example I’ve seen of one that stylistically matches Harry’s jacket was made—coincidentally enough—by the New Jersey-based Cooper Sportswear Manufacturing Company, which was also contracted to produce outerwear for the U.S. military. (A nearly identical flecked Cooper car coat in a more gray-forward colorway is still available on eBay as of Jan. 24, 2026.)

When Ontkean was planning to come out of retirement for the 2017 revival series, the actor tapped Twin Peaks superfan Brad Dukes to locate Harry’s signature jacket. Though a suitable replacement was discovered, Ontkean ultimately declined to return for the new season and the role was recast as Harry’s brother Frank serving as sheriff, played by Robert Forster—who had been Lynch’s original choice to play Harry in 1989 before Ontkean was cast.

The Sheriff’s Shirts

While not specifically uniform shirts like his deputies Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) and Tommy “Hawk” Hill (Michael Horse) wear, Harry always dresses for duty in a khaki washed cotton work-shirt—the most consistent part of his costume from the start of the series.

Harry cycles through several shirts which range in shade from a warm tan to an olive-adjacent drab tone (as seen in the pilot), but all fall within the khaki uniform spectrum and are similarly detailed with front placket, two set-in chest pockets with single-button closures through narrow welts, button cuffs which can be adjusted around the wrist, and an additional gauntlet buttons farther up each forearm.

Through the entirety of the first season and much of the second season, the crew-neck top of Harry’s black cotton short-sleeved T-shirt is visible under the open neck of his khaki shirts.

Harry always wears a pair of necklaces, usually visible over the top of his black T-shirt in the space open under his khaki work-shirt. He wears a thin gold necklace through a gold coin pendant with the silver center square-punched out and a dainty gold ring with an elongated oval setting. On a slightly shorter black neck-cord, he wears a brass double-headed pendant that Redditors have identified as the Lingling-o, “a symbol of fertility from the Philippines traditionally worn by tribes of the Cordilleras.”

When we meet Sheriff Truman in the pilot episode, he layers a black narrowly ribbed sweater over his khaki shirt. The sweater has long set-in sleeves with wider-ribbed cuffs rolled back once over each wrist and a V-neck showing some distress at its base. This V-neck jumper would reappear in “Rest in Pain” (Episode 1.04) and “The Last Evening” (Episode 1.08).

In “Variations and Revelations” (Episode 2.19), Harry reveals a varied sweater himself! Crafted from a dark navy wool, this crew-neck sweater has a wintry white-and-red Fair Isle-style motif across the chest and midsection. He’s still wearing it at the start of the following episode, and it returns when accompanying Coop to Glastonbury Grove in the finale, “Beyond Life and Death” (Episode 2.22).

Truman’s Trousers

Sheriff Truman always pairs his khaki duty shirts with earth-toned trousers, beginning with the brown flat-front slacks he wears in the pilot episode. His outerwear, jumper, and gun-belt cover much of the details, but they appear to have belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

The second episode introduces Truman’s khaki chino cotton slacks, which I consider his “canonical” trousers given how frequently he wears them (in at least 25 of the show’s 30 episodes, by my count!) and how much they complete the effect of a matching uniform with his shirt. These flat-front trousers have belt loops, straight-entry pockets along the side seams, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. The generous cut is consistent with fashions of the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Across three episodes of the first season, Truman wears olive-green trousers—also conventionally styled with belt loops, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms. Given his layers of outerwear and gun-belt pressing against the waist, it’s difficult to tell if these are also flat-front or rigged with shallow rear-facing pleats.

Harry initially wears a black leather ranger-style belt, characterized by its additional front strap over the front that closes through a polished silver-toned curved single-prong buckle.

In “The Man Behind the Glass” (Episode 2.03), Truman briefly swaps out his khaki slacks for similarly colored beige jeans, crafted from a more rigid denim cotton and styled with curved front pockets and patch pockets over the seat. They lack any clear logos, stitching, or other hallmarks that would singularly identify a brand, with a patch evidently removed from under the belt line on the back-left.

With those jeans, Harry begins wearing a more traditional smooth black leather belt, which closes through a curved brass-finished single-prong buckle. He continues wearing this in subsequent episodes, even when he’s back in his khaki slacks.

Leatherware and Accessories

The one item shared by Harry and his deputies is a black basket-woven leather gun belt wthat closes through a large squared double-prong buckle of polished silver. He carries his service revolver on the right side in a matching black leather holster with a wide loop that snaps over the belt itself, plus a narrower retention strap that snaps over the hammer.

In the first episode of Twin Peaks, Harry follows most of his fellow townsmen’s example by wearing classic brown leather moc-toe work boots, derby-laced through nickel-finished eyelets and constructed with Goodyear welting against hard rubber lug soles. He rewears these boots again at least twice, in “May the Giant Be with You” (Episode 2.01) and “Arbitrary Law” (Episode 2.09). The latter episode reveals that Harry wears them with light-brown socks that are banded in bright-red around the top.

Beginning in the second episode through the end of the series—with the few exceptions noted above—Harry’s canonical boots are dark-brown leather harness boots with brass rings and squared toes, which are weathered from wear.

Harness boots trace their lineage to the square-toed boots worn by soldiers during the Civil War, evolving into their current form during the 1960s when four leather straps and two metal rings were added for motorcyclists seeking protection from heat and impact. These fixed ring-and-strap harnesses encircling the ankle and foot specifically characterize harness boots, painting their enduring association at the crossroads of ruggedness and rebellion.

Against chilly or wet conditions as faced in the pilot episode, “Laura’s Secret Diary” (Episode 2.04), and “Arbitrary Law” (Episode 2.09), Harry pulls on a thigh-length puffer jacket made from a dark-brown polyester shell, split into three horizontal panels separated by seams. The cut is full enough to fit over the multiple layers of his flecked jacket, sweater, khaki shirt, and T-shirt, closing over them with a straight-zip front covered by a storm fly. The storm fly closes with a series up brass snaps up the front, left exposed at the top and bottom, plus an additional snap on the standing collar should Harry need to fasten the neck against inclement weather. The set-in sleeves also have single brass snaps to close the elasticized cuffs over each wrist.

A seam across the midsection suggests an internal cinch-cord. Flapped hip pockets are positioned on the lowest panel, with vertical-entry handwarmer pockets behind each of them. Harry pins his gold Twin Peaks Sheriff badge to the left side of his chest, opposite the simple gold name placard etched “H. TRUMAN” in the pilot—expanded to the full “HARRY S. TRUMAN” in subsequent episodes.

Last but certainly not least, Harry sets the cowboyish tone for his costume with a dark chocolate-brown felt pinched-crown cowboy hat, styled with a curled, self-edged brim and a lighter russet-brown leather band detailed with brass ridged keeper bars. An early glimpse inside the hat’s lining shows the label for Eddy Bros., a Los Angeles-based hatmaker that opened in 1929.

Harry wears the Eddy Bros. hat throughout all of the first season, adopting it again with some regularity several episodes into the second season—appearing in at least 22 episodes total, including the last six consecutive episodes.

It isn’t until several episodes into the second season that we ever see Harry wearing anything but his usual sheriff’s outfit described above, beginning with an A2-inspired dark-brown leather flight jacket when meeting Coop at the end of “Laura’s Secret Diary” (Episode 2.04) and then dressing down in a dark cable-knit sweater and blue jeans for the One Eyed Jack’s infiltration during the final act of “The Orchid’s Curse” (Episode 2.05).

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The Guns

Sheriff Harry Truman’s service revolver varies between episodes, though it’s initially—and most often—portrayed as a blued Colt Python with a four-inch barrel, the same .357 Magnum revolver that he would carry off-duty when infiltrating One Eyed Jack’s with Coop. Distinguished by the vented ribbing along the top of the barrel, the Python has maintained a reputation for accuracy and quality since its introduction in 1955.

In later episodes, such as the arrest of Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz) in “The Last Evening” (Episode 1.08), Harry appears to carry a heavy-barreled variant of the Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver—also blued with a four-inch barrel and wooden grips but chambered in .38 Special. This may be a secondary weapon he keeps on hand at the station, as Coop carries the same weapon after Harry deputizes him into the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department in “Checkmate” (Episode 2.13).

Harry occasionally reinforces his armament with rifles from the sheriff’s office gun rack. In “Cooper’s Dreams” (Episode 1.06), he joins Coop, Hawk, and Dr. Hayward as they trek into the woods, now carrying a Winchester Model 1892 lever-action rifle. Introduced nearly a century earlier in a trio of center-fire rounds, a Winchester ’92 may seem like an old-fashioned rifle for a lawman in the late 1980s, but it makes sense when considering Harry’s own offbeat/proto-cowboy bearing.

Harry’s subsequent rifles would be somewhat more modern than the cowboy-era Winchester lever gun, beginning with a Remington Model 700 BDL bolt-action rifle that he cleans in preparation for a drug sting in “Checkmate” (Episode 2.13). However, he actually arms himself with a pump-action shotgun for the operation—which makes sense, as the Model 700 has earned a fine reputation as an accurate hunting rifle since its 1962 debut, but it would be far less effective during a siege than a 12-gauge pump.

Finally, Harry takes a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster pump-action rifle when accompanying Coop to the portal to the Black Lodge at Glastonbury Grove in the finale, “Beyond Life and Death” (Episode 2.22). He never uses it, nor is it even possible that it would have any impact against the strange forces at the Black Lodge.

The Model 760 replaced Remington’s aging Model 141 slide-action rifle upon its introduction in 1952, replacing the spiral magazine tube with the ability to feed from four-round detachable box magazines—thus allowing more powerful rounds with at least a dozen ultimately added to the weapon’s lineup. More than one million Model 760 rifles were built until it was discontinued in the early 1980s, when it was superseded by the updated Model 7600. By this point, the Model 760 had become a dark footnote in American history when a .30-06 Springfield version was reportedly used by James Earl Ray to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968.

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The Truck

The Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department dries a small fleet of Ford Broncos with its rustic livery painted on the doors, including the 1989 Ford Bronco XLT that Sheriff Truman drives from the pilot onward. This model was a continuation of the fourth-generation of Broncos that debuted in 1987, available with three available engine options: a 4.9-liter straight-six (145 hp), a 5.0-liter “302” small-block V8 (185 hp), and a 5.8-liter “High Output” 351 Windsor V8 (210 hp).

This generation represented the mature form of Ford’s long-running, full-size two-door SUV—closely tied to the company’s pickup truck DNA by riding on a short-wheelbase (104.7-inch) version of the F-150 chassis. 1989 was the highest production year for this generation, with just shy of 70,000 units sold.

Visitors to Snoqualmie, Washington can find a reportedly screen-used Bronco—with the Twin Peaks Sheriff Department logos still painted on the doors—on display at the DirtFish rally driving school… which also doubled for the exterior of the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department on the series!

And, of course, you can stay just two miles away at the Salish Lodge & Spa, which will look quite familiar to anyone who ever dreamt to sleep at the Great Northern after seeing it overlooking that famous waterfall in Twin Peaks‘ opening credits.

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What to Imbibe

Aside from his many cups of damn fine coffee with Cooper, Sheriff Truman is only a modest on-screen drinker. The first time he notably tipples is when Judge Clinton Sternwood (Royal Dano) asks his stunning law clerk Sid (Claire Stansfield) to prepare the three of them the baffling Black Yukon Sucker Punch, presumably a cocktail with dark base spirits and a cerulean foam floater. “You have to watch these, they sneak up on ya,” Sternwood warns.

For Cocktail Chemistry Lab, Matthew Britten developed two possibilities for this mysterious concoction—both rooted in whiskey, coffee, and a blue foam whipped from egg whites and blue Curaçao, suggesting a Lynchian twist on the modern espresso martini craze.

Harry only drinks heavily when processing the truth about Josie in “Wounds and Scars” (Episode 2.17) as he downs shots of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey, which Hawk hopes to counter by serving him a full breakfast sent over by Norma. One of the world’s top-selling whiskies and a favorite of icons from Keith Richards to Frank Sinatra, Jack Daniel’s needs little introduction.

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How to Get the Look

Sheriff Harry S. Truman distinguishes his authority among his deputies with approachability, invariably wearing khaki work-shirts and trousers with his department-issued gun-belt, but maintaining a maverick sensibility in his signature cowboy hat, statement necklace, harness boots, and that hardy ’50s-style flecked car coat—all in shades of brown that fit among his deputies.

• Espresso-brown “atomic fleck” wool thigh-length car coat with convertible ulster collar, four-button front, welted breast pocket, flapped hip pockets with right-side ticket pocket, semi-strap tab cuffs, and short double vents
• Dark-brown polyester thigh-length puffer jacket with standing collar, straight-zip/snap-fly front, straight flapped hip pockets with inset handwarmer pockets, and snap-fastened cuffs
• Khaki washed cotton work-shirt with point collar, front placket, two narrow-welted button-through set-in chest pockets, and adjustable button cuffs
• Black cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt
• Khaki cotton flat-front trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather ranger-style belt with polished silver curved single-prong buckle
• Black basket-woven leather gun-belt with polished silver double-prong buckle and right-side service revolver holster
• Dark-brown leather harness boots with brass rings
• Dark-brown felt pinched-front cowboy hat with brass-studded russet leather band
• Black-corded necklace with brass Lingling-o pendant
• Thin gold necklace with gold-and-silver coin pendant and small gold ring

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