I’ll take a few moments to highlight a fun, easy read I breezed through a couple of years back: If Chins Could Kill … Confessions of a B-Movie Actor, which is essentially Bruce Campbell’s autobiography. If you have no idea who Bruce Campbell is, you probably have no business reading it, but he’s the star of the Evil Dead trilogy and go-to cult actor for everything from The X-Files to American Gothic via Xena: Warrior Princess.
Campbell’s light, witty prose details the methods used in creating the zero-budget Evil Dead films (you’ll now always notice the sweat pour out of Ted Raimi’s earhole in the latex “Henrietta” suit), and on-set trivia for other movies such as The Quick and the Dead. It’s part making-of, part harmless gossip.
He takes us through the early years of his inseparable friendship with Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi and (producer) Rob Tapert, and their wider circle, which included the Coen Brothers. We find out how these films were financed and made, and how those careers grew, though the book was published before Raimi made the Spider-Man films (in which Campbell featured).
If Chins Could Kill … was a New York Times Best Seller, and remains a fascinating insight into the life of the “jobbing actor”. Bruce next stars as The Dark Wizard in Disney’s Oz: the Great and Powerful, though I doubt he could top his role as the Snooty Usher in Spider-Man 2.
.
.
Reinspired 