Bruce Campbell Bio

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Bruce Lorne Campbell (born June 22, 1958) is an American actor, producer, writer and director.

He is best known for his starring role as Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy of horror-slapstick movies. He is currently starring as Sam Axe in Burn Notice on the USA Network.

Bruce Campbell: Personal life

Bruce Campbell - Background

Campbell was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, the son of Joanne Louise (née Pickens), a homemaker, and Charles Newton Campbell, an amateur actor and traveling billboard inspector. Bruce Campbell is of Irish and Scottish ancestry. He has an older brother, Don, and an older half-brother, Michael.

Bruce Campbell - Family

Campbell's first wife was Christine Deveau, whom he married in 1983. They had two children, Rebecca and Andy, before their divorce in 1989. Campbell currently lives in Jacksonville, Oregon, with his second wife, costume designer Ida Gearon, whom he met in the set of the movie Mindwarp.

Bruce Campbell: Career

Bruce Campbell - Early years

Bruce Campbell began acting as a teenager and soon began making small Super 8 movies with friends. After meeting Sam Raimi in Wylie E. Groves High School, the two became very good friends and started making movies together. Campbell would go on to attend Western Michigan University while he continued to work on his acting career. Campbell and Raimi collaborated on a 30-minute Super 8 version of the first Evil Dead film, titled Within the Woods, which was initially used to attract investors.

Bruce Campbell - Major film roles

A few years later, Campbell and Raimi got together with other family and friends and began work on The Evil Dead. Campbell starred and worked behind the camera, receiving a "co-executive producer" credit; Raimi wrote, directed and edited.

Following an endorsement by horror writer Stephen King the film slowly began to receive distribution. Four years following its original release, it became the number one movie in the UK. It then received distribution in the U.S., spawning two sequels: Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness.

He has appeared in many of Raimi's films outside of the Evil Dead series, notably including the Spider-Man film series. Campbell often takes on quirky roles, such as Elvis Presley in the film Bubba Ho-tep, and appears in films that go straight to video or cable TV. Along with Bubba Ho-tep, Campbell played a supporting role in the 2005 film Sky High, and stars in My Name Is Bruce. Campbell is slated for voiceover work on the 2009 animated adaptation of the children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Bruce Campbell - Television roles

Outside of film, Campbell has appeared in a number of television series. He starred in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. a boisterous sci-fi comedy western created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse that ran for one season. He played a lawyer turned bounty hunter who was trying to hunt down John Bly, the man who killed his father. He went on to kill John Bly with the orb, a ball of immense technology sent back from the fifth millennium. He starred in the television series Jack of All Trades, set on a fictional island, occupied by the French in 1801. Campbell was also credited as co-executive producer, among others. The show was directed by Eric Gruendemann, and was produced by various people, including Sam Raimi. The show aired for two seasons, from 2000 to 2001. He had a recurring role as "Bill Church Jr." on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

In 1996-1997, Campbell was a recurring guest star on the show Ellen as Ed Billik, who becomes Ellen's boss when she sells her bookstore in season four. He is also known for his supporting role as the recurring character Autolycus ("the King of Thieves") on both Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. Campbell played Hercules/Xena series producer Rob Tapert in two episodes of Hercules set in the present. He directed a number of episodes of Hercules and Xena, including the Hercules series finale.

Campbell made a critically acclaimed dramatic guest role as a grief-stricken detective seeking revenge for his father's murder in a two-part episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Campbell later played the part of a polygamous demon in The X-Files episode, "Terms of Endearment". He also starred as Agent Jackman in the episode "Witch Way Now?" of the WB series Charmed, as well as playing an FBI agent in an episode the short-lived series American Gothic titled "Meet the Beetles".

Campbell presently appears as a regular on the TV series Burn Notice, which has aired since 2007. He portrays Sam Axe, a beer-chugging, womanizing former Navy SEAL now working as an unlicensed private investigator and sometime mercenary with his old friend Michael Westen, the show's main character.

Bruce Campbell - Voice acting

Campbell is featured as a voice actor in several video game titles. He provides the voice of Ash in the three latest games based on the Evil Dead film series, as well as titles such as Pitfall 3D: Beyond the Jungle, Spider-Man: The Movie, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3.

He provided the voice of main character Jake Logan in the PC title, Tachyon: The Fringe, the voice of main character Jake Burton in the PlayStation game Broken Helix and the voice of Magnanimous in Megas XLR. Campbell voiced the pulp adventurer Lobster Johnson in Hellboy: The Science of Evil and has done voice-over work for the Codemaster's game Hei$t, which is scheduled for a 2009 release.

Bruce Campbell - Writing

In addition to acting and occasionally directing, Campbell has become a writer, including authoring an autobiography, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. The paperback version of the book adds a chapter about the reaction of fans at book signings. "Whenever I do mainstream stuff, I think they're pseudo-interested, but they're still interested in seeing weirdo, offbeat stuff. And that's what I'm attracted to."

Campbell has also written a book titled Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way, a comical novel featuring himself as the main character struggling to make it into the world of A-list movies. He later recorded an audio play adaptation of Make Love with fellow Michigan actors including long time collaborator Ted Raimi. This radio drama styled interpretation of the novel was released through independent label Rykodisc and spans 6 discs with a 6 hour running time.

In addition to his novels, Campbell also wrote a column for X-Ray Magazine in 2001, an issue of the popular comic series The Hire, comic book adaptations of his Man With The Screaming Brain and most recently he wrote the introduction to Josh Becker's The Complete Guide To Low Budget Feature Film Making.

He was also Drawn into the Marvel Zombie comics as Ash (from the Evil Dead), he is featured in 5 comics all in a seiries (Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness). They are availible at the comic shops, and you can get them in magazine or hard cover. In the comics he fights along side the Marvel heros against the heros and people ,who have turned into zombies(deadites), while in search of the Necronomicon (Book of the Dead.)

Bruce Campbell - Cameo roles

• A deranged plastic surgeon (Named "The Surgeon General") in John Carpenter's Escape from L.A..
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters as Chicken Bittle.
• "Roland" in the film within a film, The Majestic.
• Timecop (1997) as a character who went by the pseudonym Bernie Williams (using the same last name as his Ash character)
• Several small parts in movies by Joel and Ethan Coen - appearing as a soap opera actor in the film Fargo, as well as bit parts in The Hudsucker Proxy, Intolerable Cruelty, and The Ladykillers.
• The wrestling announcer in Spider-Man.
• A stubborn usher in Spider-Man 2 who refuses to give Peter Parker access to Mary Jane's play on account of being late, thus causing a rift in their relationship.
• The Host of the restaurant in Spider-Man 3
• A small role in Congo, where he is torn to shreds by savage gorillas in the first ten minutes.
• Was In a Clip from The Show [Robot Chicken] entitled "morning wood"