Renowned actor and producer Bruce Campbell, recently shot the Jimmy Kimmel pilot “Adopted” for ABC opposite Wendy Mallick. He will next be seen in Casey Tebo’s Independent thriller, Black Friday, opposite Michael Jai White. Campbell will also be heard as the voice of Richard Nixon in 18 ½, Dan Mirvish’s Independent film about the 18 ½ missing minutes of the Watergate tapes, starring Richard Kind and John Cryer. Alongside Sam Raimi, Campbell is currently producing the next film in the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise.
In 1979, with his Detroit friends, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Campbell raised $350,000 for a low-budget film, Evil Dead, in which he starred and co-executive produced, and for which he is best known. The film gained notoriety in England where it became the best selling video of 1983, beating out The Shining. After its appearance at Cannes, where Stephen King dubbed it “the most ferociously original horror film of the year,” New Line Cinema stepped forward to release Evil Dead in the U.S.
After co-producing Crimewave, a cross-genre comedy written by Sam Raimi, Ethan and Joel Cohen, Campbell quickly gained a foothold producing or starring in genre films such as the Manic Cop series, Lunatics: A Love Story, Moontrap and Mindwarp, a post-apocalyptic Jeremiah Johnson, during which he met his wife-to-be, filmmaker Ida Gearon.
Campbell rejoined his Detroit colleagues to star and co-produce the second and third films in the Evil Dead trilogy, completing 12 years of work on the cult favorite. Campbell made his foray into television, first starring in the highly touted Fox series “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr,” then as a recurring guest star on the hit show “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” With these under his belt, Campbell made the transition to director, helming numerous episodes and recurring as the King of Thieves in the number one syndicated Hercules: The Legend Journeys, and its follow-up phenomenon, Xena: Warrior Princess.
Campbell expanded his range on television, appearing in Disney’s update of The Love Bug and its dramatic turns on the acclaimed series “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “The X-Files.” At the invitation of ABC, he recurred on ABC’S Emmy-nominated “Ellen,” participating in one of the three toted “out” episodes. But Campbell didn’t abandon his film roots, landing featured roles in the blockbuster Congo, John Capenter’s Escape From LA, and MGM’s cult sleeper Bubba Hotep. He followed these up with roles in Paramount’s romantic comedy, Serving Sara, Jim Carrey’s The Magestic, and all three of Sam Raimi’s blockbuster Spider-Man movies.
Practicing what he calls “job rotation,” Campbell directed and starred as himself in My Name is Bruce, a spoof of his B-movie career, then re-teamed with Disney for their fun-filled hit, Sky High. Campbell is also enjoying his role as an author with back-to-back-to-back New York Times bestsellers: a memoir entitled If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, the 2017 sequel, Hail to the Chin and his first novel, Make Love the Bruce Campbell way.
In the multi-media industry, Campbell voiced characters for Disney’s animated TV series “Tarzan,” “Tangled” and the Warner Brothers feature “The Ant Bully.” He is also portrayed the character of Mayor Shelbourne in the animated hit Cloudy With a Change of Meatballs. More recently, Bruce voiced and completed an impressive seven-year run on spy show “Burn Notice” – USA’s number one show on cable.
More than two decades after the release of Army of Darkness, Campbell returned to his most iconic role in “Ash vs Evil Dead” for three critical-acclaimed seasons on the Starz network. Currently, Campbell’s “day job” is hosting a revival of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” for Travel Channel. Campbell continues to share his acting and filmmaking experiences by lecturing at universities, including Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Stanford.
