Pop quiz: who’s the coolest actor working in the film industry today? I’m thinking of someone who has appeared in both blockbusters and art-house movies, a journeyman actor who both headlines and does small character roles, a man who commands a legion of die-hard fans, and who is the very definition of “suave.”

Am I referring to Sean Connery? Nah, I said someone who’s still working today, and all the signs indicate that Sir Sean has retired. Harrison Ford? Hasn’t worked in several years, apparently content to spend his days playing Rescue Ranger in his helicopter. Tom Cruise? Please… the word “suave” hardly applies to someone who publicly abuses a sofa in the name of mid-life-crisis/publicity-stunt love. No, the person I have in mind is someone you could actually imagine yourself hanging out with, a regular guy who just happens to have landed a job a whole lot of people think they want (but would probably hate if they got it), and who has managed, somehow, against all odds, to forge a decades-long career in an industry that is finished with most people within a couple of years.

I’m talking about the one and only… Bruce Campbell.

What’s that, you say? You’ve never heard of Bruce Campbell? Well, you obviously need to get out more. Go on, go. Go now and rent a few movies. Never heard of Bruce Campbell, sheesh!

I’m just kidding. Seriously, don’t feel bad if you don’t know who he is. He’s not exactly in the same league as those other three I just mentioned. Bruce Campbell works almost exclusively in what used to be called “B-movies,” but are more widely referred to as “low-budget crap.” He’s best known to genre fans for playing Ash, the world’s stupidest hero in The Evil Dead films, but if the average person recognizes his face at all, it’s probably from a recurring role on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and its spin-off, Xena: Warrior Princess. (He was Autolycus, the dashing King of Thieves, if that rings any bells for you.)

In spite of having a filmography composed almost entirely of obscure dreck — or perhaps because of this — Bruce is a superstar here in my hometown of Salt Lake. For some bizarre reason, this stodgy, strait-laced, button-down city of mine is home to a lot of a people who dwell on the fringes of mainstream popular culture. People who groove on dark, sometimes disturbing, underground music, and who like their movies cultish and bizarre. To them, Bruce Campbell is a minor deity. And did I mention there is a lot of them here?

Consider, for instance, the first time I saw Bruce in the flesh, a few years ago when he came to Salt Lake to sign copies of his memoir, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-movie Actor. As I recall, the signing was only supposed to last for a couple of hours, but so many people showed up at Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore that it took nearly seven hours before everyone present received their twenty seconds of Bruce-time. It was a bizarre experience, half grueling ordeal and half free-wheeling party. The bookstore ended up ordering pizza around midnight for all the loyal fanboys (and quite a few fangirls) who waited in line, and, to his credit, Bruce himself refused to leave until he’d signed something for everyone who came. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think it really says something about the man that he was willing to hang around so long and wear his signing-hand down to the bones, rather than disappoint any of his fans. I’ve encountered other celebrities who won’t spare one extra second from their busy lives to mingle with the people who make them celebrities in the first place. These individuals stick so rigidly to their schedules that if they’re only supposed to sign autographs for one hour, you can bet that at the 1:01:00 mark, they’re sipping champagne in first-class and waiting for the plane to start rolling, and to hell with anybody left standing in line back at the venue. (I won’t name names, but if the words “William Shatner” come to your mind, I won’t dissuade you from thinking that’s who I’m talking about.)

Bruce ain’t that kind of guy. But he’s not superhuman, either, and I imagine one seven-hour autographing marathon is probably enough for a single lifetime. Thus, I understand why Bruce’s most recent Salt Lake appearance, two weeks ago on July 9th, was so much more regimented than his previous one. I didn’t begrudge the movie-theater venue, the new procedures, the requirement for tickets, the limitation to only one autographed item per person — all these rules made sense after the chaos at Sam Weller’s a few years ago. But they did lead to a very different atmosphere than before — much less spontaneous, much more formal. Not as delirious and, hence, not as much fun.

That’s not to say that Anne and I had no fun at all. On the contrary. Bruce is a funny, outspoken man, with no condescending movie-star attitude issues. He’s self-deprecating to a fault, and he likes to gossip and tell you exactly where the bear does his business while wandering the forest. In addition, you’ve got the always-amusing spectacle of Bruce Campbell fans, a generally motley crowd that tends towards tatoos and piercings. Think Trekkies crossed with punk-rockers and miscellaneous fetishists, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what Deadites are like. And how can you not have fun at a combination book-signing/movie premiere where the products being pushed are a novel called Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way (all about a struggling actor named, oddly enough, Bruce Campbell) and a movie titled Man with the Screaming Brain?

So, yes, we had a good time meeting Bruce (again), receiving signed copies of his latest literary endeavor, and viewing his latest film. I even got the photos that I missed out on last time (I forgot to take my camera when Bruce was at Sam Weller’s). But the whole affair was perhaps just a little too efficient, a little too much like the more openly commercial meet-n-greets hosted by Creation, the biggest producer of fan conventions in the biz. Those events are very much the antithesis of what Bruce Campbell has always been about, and I hope he doesn’t journey much farther down that dark path.

Incidentally, Man with the Screaming Brain is as ridiculous as it sounds, a low-budget (what else?) thriller (I guess that’s what you’d call it) shot in Bulgaria. It’s essentially a love triangle between a man who has two minds inhabiting the same body (think of the Steve Martin movie All of Me), a fembot, and a psycho Gypsy woman in a wedding dress. There’s lots of action, a rib-tickling performance from Stacy Keach as a mad scientist, and Bruce’s old Evil Dead buddy Ted Raimi… and that’s about all there really is to say about this movie. It’s entertaining enough if you find it running on cable some rainy Saturday afternoon, and I imagine it would be pretty funny after a couple of beers. But it’s no classic, not even for this type of movie.

I haven’t read the book yet.

Oh, and in case you’re still wondering what I meant when I said Bruce Campbell had been in a couple of blockbusters, he’s had cameos in both Spider-Man movies, which were directed by his old Evil Dead buddy, Sam Raimi. Yes, that’s Ted’s brother… one of the things I love about the low-budget cult-movie scene is the way everyone is related in some fashion.

And if you still can’t place Bruce Campbell’s face, don’t forget to check out those photos…