If there’s a more deserving fellow to wish a very Happy Birthday to today, I can’t think of him.  Actor/director/producer/author Bruce Campbell, born 52 years ago today, is a real pro, a Hollywood survivor and one of the most delightful onscreen personalities around today.  I just finished watching his 2008 feature (as director and star) My Name is Bruce — really, just now, on Netflix streaming, it’s beautiful! — and his spoof on his own image, that of a cowardly, horn-dog, B-Movie actor, is hilarious.  Though I looked on Rotten Tomatoes and it only has a 38% rating, there are plenty of laughs and I highly recommend it.  Even better, there’s a lot of talk in the movie about it being Bruce Campbell’s birthday, so it’s perfect viewing material for today! 

If you’re already familiar with Bruce Campbell’s work, then you know what I’m talking about.  If you’ve somehow managed to skirt around his output until now, you’ve got a treat ahead of you.  Bruce is forever in the hearts of horror movie fans for his three-movie role as the hero Ash in the director/writer/actor/producer (and longtime friend/collaborator) Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy, beginning with the original 1981 title, continuing with the 1987 sequel and finally the rollicking medieval adventure Army of Darkness from 1992.  Both Campbell and Raimi more or less began their careers with Evil Dead, putting their mark on a particular and personal brand of horror film, one filled with spectacular and imaginative gore, a unique visual sense, and a great deal of rambunctious humor. 

Campbell’s more conventional heroic qualities — good looks, thick dark movie-star hair, a strong…very strong…chin — would have made him fit to play stalwart good guys in any era, but his idiosyncratic sense of humor and his outsized ability to both play it straight down the middle and yet embrace the weird in himself and his audience has helped him carve a singular niche.  While many of his B-titles cast him fairly conventionally, his alliance with Raimi, both in film and especially on TV, has resulted in wonderful stuff.  Campbell’s appearances as the wily and dashing Autolycus, King of Thieves, featured in both of exec-producer Raimi’s incredibly successful syndicated mythological series of the mid-90s, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, were hilarious and much-anticpated.  Campbell also cut his directing teeth on both series.  Raimi (and his co-producers) also gave Campbell a choice  role in the short but incredibly sassy series Jack of All Trades, syndicated in 2000.  As the title character, a Napoleonic-era America spy stationed on a small island in the Pacific, Campell was free to indulge in all the mock heroics and expertly-delivered sarcasm he could muster.  Imagine if Bob Hope, in his early movies, had been as agile and handsome as Errol Flynn, and then you’d have what Bruce Campbell brought to the part.  Sexy and side-splitting. 

I don’t want to forget The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., his wonderful series on the early Fox network in 1993.  A thoroughly entertaining western-sci-fi-fantasy-adventure-spy-cowboy entry which only lasted 27 episodes, …Brisco County Jr.  finally found its following via DVD release (and a run in the late ’90s on TNT spearheaded by yours truly).  Definitely check it out if you like your fantasy guys to wear spurs and ride a brilliant horse, this one named Comet.  Bruce Campbell is now riding high on USA Network’s extremely successful and critically applauded series Burn Notice, which keeps getting high ratings, season renewals and fan appreciation, thanks in no small part to Bruce’s wily portrayal of Sam Axe, a tropical-shirted ex-spy. 

Among the dozens and dozens of movies made by Campbell, we can’t forget his 2002 triumph in director Don Coscarelli’s high concept horror comedy Bubba Ho-Tep, where Bruce plays Elvis Presley as a rest home-bound “The King” turned mummy-killer.  Alternately touching, absurd and action-packed, Bubba Ho-Tep also features a terrific performance by Ossie Davis as another elderly patient who believes he is John F. Kennedy.  This odd couple comes together to fight an ancient evil, and both Campbell and Davis are superb.

Bruce Campbell has done it all and will continue to do it even more, if his admirers have any say in the matter.  We love his insouciance, his humor, his ability to take a punch and bounce (sometimes literally) back, his great comic physicality, his ability to know what’s so great about himself and his completely and total awesomeness.  Happy Birthday and Hail to the King, baby!

P.S.: Visit Bruce Campbell’s official website here!