Background

Bruce Campbell was born on June 22, 1958, in Royal Oak, Michigan, United States to Charles Newton Campbell and Joanne Louise. His father was a struggling actor and a traveling billboard inspector while his mother was a housewife. Bruce grew up in Birmingham, Michigan in an upper-middle-class environment. He used to play a lot of hockey as a kid and is the youngest of the three brothers.

Education

As a child, Campbell began acting on stage, alongside his father in a community theater, and around that time he also started making 8mm films with a friend. Studying at high school, Bruce attended a theater class where he met the future famous film-director Sam Raimi. The two began collaborating with others from their high school to make "heaps of super-8 movies - about fifty or so," Campbell recalled on his Web site.

After high school, in 1976 Campbell enrolled at Western Michigan University. However, he attended it only for six months. Bruce left the university to continue his acting career.

Career

After graduating from high school, Campbell spent a few years working odd jobs in Michigan. In 1976 he was an apprentice at the Cherry County Playhouse. Then he worked as a production assistant for a Detroit-area producer of commercials, and from time to time, appeared himself in commercials.

Finally, Campbell and Raimi, along with future Hollywood producer Rob Tapert, set out to make their own feature-length film. First, they made a short horror film Within the Woods and showed it to investors who were intrigued enough to pull up $350,000 to make The Evil Dead. The latter film "made up in imagination what it lacked in funds," Bill Kelley wrote in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and before long it was one of the most-rented videos in the country. The success of The Evil Dead and its sequels launched Campbell’s, Raimi's, and Tapert’s careers. Along with Raimi, Campbell also worked in the superhero action movie Darkman and The Quick and the Dead. Besides, Bruce made cameos in many of Raimi’s other projects like the Spider-Man series in 2001, 2004, and 2007.

It should be noted, that Campbell may be best known for playing the character Ashley J. "Ash" Williams in The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, and Army of Darkness. However, as his fans know, Campbell has made a career out of playing large roles in low-budget films and television programs and smaller roles in major productions.

After The Evil Dead, Bruce participated in a series of movies with moderate commercial success. From 1988 to 1991 Campbell appeared in movies such as Maniac Cop, Moontrap, The Dead Next Door, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Lunatics: A Love Story.

Campbell has been experimenting with his acting career since the beginning. He has worked in unconventional movies like Bubba Ho-tep, My Name is Bruce, Sky High. He has also contributed to animated movies like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Cars 2. Campbell has been a part of major movies like The Majestic, which also starred Jim Carrey, The Hudsucker Proxy, in which he had a supporting role, Congo, Escape From New York.

Apart from the movies, Campbell had a great career on American television. He starred in The Adventures of Brisco County, a science fiction that only ran for a season. Then from 2000-2001, he did Jack of All Trades.

Other shows that he did are Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Ellen, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

In 2007, Campbell became a part of television series called Burn Notice on USA Network. He plays the role of Sam Axe who is a Casanova, ex-navy official, working as a private detective.

Achievements

• Campbell's role of Ash Williams in the Evil Dead series became a symbolic character of the later 80s and the early 90s. It is said that the 'horror comedy' genre was born with this series. Ash Williams was featured in Marvel comics.
  
  Campbell has been considered to be the best "Reverse Actor" in Hollywood. His autobiography titled If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor was a New York Times Best Seller.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way

    (The action revolves around Campbell's preparations for a ...)

    2005
  • If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor

    (Bruce Campbell's autobiography.)

    2002

• film

  • Maniac Cop 2

    (The undead killer cop returns in this gory sequel, which ...)

    1990
  • Army of Darkness

    (The third installment in Sam Raimi's cult classic Evil De...)

    1992
  • Bubba Ho-Tep

    (Having switched identities with an impersonator years bef...)

    2002
  • My Name is Bruce

    (Something evil is stirring in the small mining town of Go...)

    2007
  • The Evil Dead 1981

Religion

Campbell is a religious man, an ordained minister and has married couples.

Views

Quotations: "There is a large element of me in every role I do. Actors who say they can dive inside a character are either schizophrenic or lying."

"It seemed that my lot in life was to either have big parts in small films or small parts in big films."

"I'm not interested in making a $60-million studio film with a bunch of 24-year-olds telling me what to do."

"If you go to Hollywood, you've already sold out. By the sheer act of going there, you're saying, 'I need to go there because this is the only way I can get my movie made.' Baloney! Indiana's the place to make your movie. Pontiac, Michigan. Whatever. Then you're just making it on the merits of the movie. You don't have to have any discussions about what's hip now. Who can we get to do the soundtrack? You can actually put a score to your movie instead of a soundtrack. I get this thing all the time. Filmmakers go, 'Can I send you a script? You'll read it and attach yourself and we'll package it.' Why can't you get the money based on nothing, just the script? This whole packaging thing is out of control. Then you get absurd casting because it's all packaged by the same talent agency. The sensibility is so bizarre."

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Campbell's height is 1,85 m.

Connections

On March 13, 1983 Bruce Campbell married Christine Deveau. They have had two children and have lived for 6 years before the divorce. In 1991 Bruce got married for a second time. His spouse is a costume designer Ida Gearon.

Father:

Charlie Campbell

Mother:

Joanne Campbell

Spouse:

Ida Gearon

ex-wife:

Christine Deveau

Daughter:

Rebecca Campbell

Son:

Andy Campbell

second cousin:

Billy Campbell

Brother:

Don Campbell

Brother:

Michael Rendine

friend, colleague:

Sam Raimi

Friend:

John Cameron

References

• Campbell's personal web-site