The man radiates cool at all times, and he’s got the kind of movie-star looks that you really only see in cartoons these days. His chin is a national treasure. And even if the name isn’t clicking with you, you know him. He’s been an icon in nerd circles since the 80’s, but there’s a good chance you recognize him from any of the Spider-Man movies, the Old Spice commercials where he sings a lounge version of “Hungry Like the Wolf”, or his regular role as former spy Sam Axe on Burn Notice.
Bruce started out in B-movies, where he was beloved for his role as Ash in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. Now, I don’t like horror movies. Even classic horror films that are supposed to transcend the genre just don’t appeal to me. But I love the Evil Dead trilogy. They’re horrifically violent but really, really funny. They’re such labors of love – the first two especially are made by Bruce and Sam and their friends on a budget of nothing. There’s this loopy “Let’s put on a show” quality to them, and they’re just so winning. And yes, I am saying this about movies in which somebody swallows a flying eyeball and a woman is raped by a tree.
Bruce’s Ash is a basically well-meaning meathead who brings his girlfriend down to an old cabin for a romantic weekend. (The first two movies are essentially the same story – the second one is more of a remake than a sequel. And the end of the second one is supposed to lead directly into the third, Army of Darkness, but the events don’t match up at all. It’s a complicated trilogy.) He inadvertently performs (or plays back) an incantation and drags from Hell an ancient and powerful evil. But it’s so much fun, and that comes down to Bruce’s performance. Ash is simultaneously a badass, a little bit crazy, and a guy who’s not very good at things. It’s a performance that elevates the movies from interesting to classic. There’s Three Stooges-style slapstick as Ash battles his own possessed hand and he throws himself around the room. And there’s a great scene that’s both hilarious and terrifying – all of the inanimate objects in the room come to life and start taunting Ash, and after a few seconds, he just joins in. He’s laughing along with the mounted deer head and the rocking chair, and he’s even putting on a little show to get them to laugh harder. It’s a weird and funny bit, but it also seems like Ash just broke from the stress and went insane. It’s really unsettling.
And while Ash has spawned a mini-merchandise empire, Bruce toiled away in low budget horror and sci-fi for a good long time. And he made every one of them kind of special. No, you’d never see a Bruce Campbell performance described as ‘flat’ or ‘bland’. More like ‘quirky’. The word ‘gusto’ could be properly applied. He’s a dude who loves movies.
There was a time when both Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers were struggling nobodies. It’s hard to believe now, and that’s why their collaboration Crimewave is such a treat. It’s really hard to find, and it’s not what you’d call a great movie. It’s deeply flawed and ridiculous but it’s incredibly fun. And, you know, it’s written by Raimi and both Coens. It’s a snapshot of a very weird time in their careers. Of course, it’s also got a great Bruce Campbell performance as Renaldo The Heel. He’s not just a heel, he’s the kind of heel who hates guys who hates heels. It’s hilarious. He’s basically playing a cartoon villain in live action, which is really fun to see.
Both Raimi and the Coens stuck with Bruce, too. He has a role in almost every Raimi movie, and plays three different scene-stealing parts in the Spider-Man trilogy. He’s the announcer at Peter Parker’s wrestling match (you know, the guy who comes up with the name of the character), the usher who won’t let Peter into the play, and in Spider-Man 3, a snooty French waiter with an accent so abstract that he actually has to tell people that he’s French. And the Coens are fond of putting him in the background, occasionally on TV screens within the movie. If one of their characters is watching television, they’re probably watching a soap opera where Bruce plays a doctor.
He made inroads into the mainstream in the early 90’s when he starred in the title role of the FOX sci-fi western The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. He plays a Harvard-educated gunslinger out to avenge the death of his father. This series is just a legitimate delight – it’s actual family fun and it’s a real shame it didn’t run longer than the one season. It’s one of my all-time favorites and my most treasured DVD set. (And bonus – it was co-created by LOST executive-producer Carlton Cuse. Just wait until you see the episodes revolving around an incredibly powerful artifact of mysterious origins, particularly when it sends Brisco back in time to meet himself. Carlton’s been mulling this stuff over for a while.)
More TV work followed, including a run on Ellen as Ellen’s boss, the campy and winning Jack of All Trades, and a recurring gig on Xena Warrior Princess, including a memorable episode where his character was possessed by Xena’s spirit. Then he started popping up in small roles in big movies, or medium roles in terrible movies. (McHale’s Navy is not his fault!) And then he gave us one of the best portrayals of Elvis Presley ever.
In 2002’s Bubba Ho-Tep, Bruce played Sebastian Haff, an Elvis impersonator living out his last years in a retirement home. Or possibly he was the actual Elvis, having switched places with an impersonator at the height of his fame. It’s an amazing performance, perfectly invoking Elvis without hitting any of the clichés. And when you consider that he’s invoking an elderly Elvis who never existed while also being 35 years younger then the character, it’s mind-blowing. It is a surprising and sensitive portrayal in a movie that explores the question of what happens to our heroes when we outgrow them. The only reason Campbell’s Elvis doesn’t sit next to Jamie Foxx’s Ray Charles or Joaquin Phoenix’s Johnny Cash is that he appears in a movie where Elvis, an African-American JFK, and a retired Lone Ranger fight a cowboy mummy who sucks people’s souls out of their asses. To my mind, that makes it approximately one thousand times better than Ray, but I may not be a representative sample. Still, it’s a fun and thoughtful movie that is also completely insane.
Around this time, he wrote two books. His autobiography, If Chins Could Kill, is wonderful. It’s full of behind-the-scenes stories, tales of early low-budget movies, insight into how many big movies end up going wrong, and surprisingly tender and well-observed stories from his childhood. It’s a book that’s so much better than it needs to be. Then there’s his novel, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, which is a fictional account of his role in a major romantic comedy and how he completely derailed it. Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger are major characters. It’s often hysterical, and it shows Bruce has a real gift for storytelling.
Most recently, he starred in My Name is Bruce, a movie in which he plays himself. Essentially, it’s about how Bruce Campbell has to fight off an invasion of the undead, because both the zombies and his fans can’t really distinguish between Bruce and his Ash character. It’s a fun piece of meta-fiction, where Bruce really gets to tweak his image. And of course, he’s one of the leads on USA’s Burn Notice. In fact, his Sam Axe is so popular that he’s getting a spin-off movie. The man is consistently awesome.
A few years ago, I got to meet Bruce Campbell. He was in my town to host a showing of The Man with the Screaming Brain, a sci-fi comedy that he wrote and directed, and also starred in. (It’s got great physical comedy, and it’s a love letter to his B-movie roots, while also being completely tasteless.) Before the screening, he did a signing and a huge crowd turned out. Hundreds of people, many of whom had piles of Evil Dead merchandise.
As I got closer to the front of the line (which took several hours), a line assistant had me write my name on a sheet of paper and put it in front of each book that I was getting signed. That’s usually the sign of a crappy book signing – the author doesn’t want to waste time figuring out how to spell your name and wants to get you out the door fast. And that would have been understandable, but disappointing.
It turns out, Bruce had people do this so he could talk to them rather than screw around with getting the dedication right. More than two hundred people had passed through before I did, and he was still taking the time to make jokes and smile indulgently when the 90th person quoted Army of Darkness to him. For the record, I told him how much I liked his guest-arc on Homicide: Life on the Street which is probably not something a lot of his fans reference right away. He told me a little about how his role came about, and while it was really just a couple of minutes, it was really cool that he was putting in a full day signing stuff and took some of that time to talk to a fan. That is classy and awesome, and the kind of thing that makes you feel like fifteen years of fandom was not misplaced.
And so, for making everything better and also for being cool and gracious, Bruce Campell is really the only choice for our first Profile in Awesome.
The Essential Bruce Campbell
MOVIES – Evil Dead 2, Bubba Ho-Tep, Spider-Man, My Name is Bruce, The Man with the Screaming Brain
TV – The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. – The Complete Series, Jack of All Trades – The Complete Series, Burn Notice (ongoing – Seasons 1 – 3 available on DVD)
BOOKS – If Chins Could Kill, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, The Man with the Screaming Brain graphic novel
