Bruce Campbell, an actor from “The Evil Dead” who is a fixture at fan conventions, says he will take his foot off the gas for a while while he receives treatment for an unspecified cancer.
“[T]Nowadays, when someone has a health problem, it's known as an 'opportunity', so let's go with that: I'm having one of those. It is also called a type of cancer that is “treatable,” not “curable.” I apologize if this is a shock, it was a shock to me too,” the 67-year-old said on social media on Monday.
“The good news is that I'm not going to go into any more details.”
What he did go into more detail about was his plan for tailoring treatment, which involves eliminating “the looks and the inconvenience and the work in general” while getting the care he needs. Campbell said he is “very sorry” to have canceled several con appearances over the summer, but noted that “treatment needs and professional obligations don't always go hand in hand.”
He said his plan is to arrive “as best as I can” over the summer so he can promote his new movie “Ernie & Emma” this fall. The film, which he wrote, directed and starred in, follows a widower as he scatters his wife's ashes in very specific places and addresses the memories that arise in each of them.
Campbell's place in the fandom world was cemented early on after he and friend Sam Raimi teamed up on the 1981 film “The Evil Dead,” in which Campbell played Ashley “Ash” J. Williams and Raimi directed.
After teaming up on two more films in “The Evil Dead” universe, Campbell, Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi produced the television series “Ash vs. Evil Dead,” which aired for three seasons on Starz from 2015 to 2018.
Campbell also co-starred in the USA Network series “Burn Notice,” playing Sam Axe, a former Navy SEAL and burned spy who dates the series' main character, Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), a spy who as the series begins receives his own “burn notice.” That ran from 2007 to 2013.
Returning to the present, Sam Raimi's daughter Emma appears as the character Tatyana in Campbell's “Ernie & Emma,” as does another Raimi brother, Ted.
Campbell wrote on Monday afternoon: “I'm not trying to get sympathy – or advice – I just want to get ahead of this information in case false information spreads (which it will).
“Fear not,” he added, “I'm a tough old son of a bitch and I have great support, so I hope to be here for a while.”
He then thanked “the biggest fans in the world” and said he hoped to see them soon.
