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| Birth Name(s) : Sam Raimi |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Sam Raimi Biography
Samuel Marshall Raimi (born October 23, 1959 in Royal Oak, Michigan) is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing the classic cult-horror film The Evil Dead and the blockbuster Spider-Man films.
Raimi became fascinated with making films when his father brought a movie camera home one day and he began to make Super 8 movies with childhood friend Bruce Campbell. In college, he teamed up with his brother's roommate Robert Tapert and Campbell to shoot Within the Woods (1978), a 32-minute horror film which raised $350,000, as well as the short comedic film It's Murder!. Through family, friends, and a network of investors Raimi was able to finance production of the highly successful horror film The Evil Dead (1981) which became a major hit and effectively launched Raimi's career to new levels. He began work on his second film Crimewave (1985), intended as a live-action comic bookâthe film was not successful, due in part to unwanted studio intervention. Raimi returned to the horror genre with the seminal Evil Dead II (which toned down the savageness of the original in favour of slapstick, showcasing his love of the Three Stooges). A long-time comic book buff, he attempted to adapt "The Shadow" into a movie, but was unable to secure the rights. So he created his own super-hero, Darkman (1990). The film was his first major studio picture, and was only moderately successful, but he was still able to secure funding for Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness, which turned away almost totally from horror in favour of fantasy and comedy elements.
Also, according to AICN, Raimi has expressed an interest in directing a film version of The Hobbit, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Raimi is also reported to be working on a remake of The Evil Dead (1981), which according to IMDB.com is set for a 2008 release.
In addition to film, Raimi has worked in television, producing such series as Xena: Warrior Princess, featuring his younger brother Ted Raimi and long-time friend Bruce Campbell, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, American Gothic, Cleopatra 2525 and Jack of All Trades. In 2006, Raimi agreed to direct a TV version of Terry Goodkind's best-selling The Sword of Truth fantasy series.
In his film and television projects, Sam Raimi's brother Ted Raimi and his friend Bruce Campbell often appear in on-screen roles, though these appearances are often just short cameos. The trio have been working together since their college days. Both Ted and Bruce have appeared in all three Evil Dead and Spider-Man movies. In the Dead films, Campbell plays the recurring star role of Ash, while Ted played various small parts every time. In the Spider Man films, however, Ted plays Daily Bugle advertising manager Ted Hoffman, while Campbell has played different roles every time.
Raimi occasionally appears on-screen in his own movies, usually in similar fashion to the cameos made by his idol Alfred Hitchcock: A silhouette behind a projection screen (Spider-Man, in the wrestling scene), a passer-by with some kind of physical interaction with the film's protagonist (Spider-Man 2, as the student whose bookbag hits Peter Parker in the back of the head), a hitchhiker in The Evil Dead. Raimi also wears a suit with white shirt and tie on-set in another homage to Hitchcock.
Sam Raimi has included a 1973 yellow Oldsmobile Delta 88 automobile (nicknamed "The Classic") in every film except The Quick and the Dead. A bottle of Maker's Mark also appears regularly in his movies.
Other Raimi screen-framing trademarks include:
- A distinctive camera shot where the camera follows a moving object (such as an arrow or a projectile weapon) at high speeds creating a first-person point of view from the object itself;
- A rapid dolly zoom to bring a far-off object suddenly into the center of the shot or to pull back from the main focal object to show what is happening around the perimeter (sometimes called "push-pull");
- Montage sequences with overlapping close-up shots to establish a set of similar actions over elapsing time.
In the Making The Amazing documentary on the Spider-Man 2 DVD, both Tobey Maguire and Bruce Campbell jokingly describe Raimi's penchant for "abusing" actors: In order to get realistic closeups of a character getting hit by debris, Raimi usually stands just off-camera throwing items, swinging tree branches, etc., at the actor who is at the center of the shot. Scenes from the documentary show that Raimi is the one throwing popcorn at Peter Parker during the walk to the wrestling ring in Spider-Man and tossing gold coins around during the bank robbery scene in Spider-Man 2.
Raimi has been married since 1993 to Gillian Deale Greene, daughter of actor Lorne Greene. They have five children. Three of the Raimis' children (daughter Emma Rose and sons Lorne and Henry) appeared as extras in Spider-Man 3 during the movie's climactic final battle.
On occasion, Raimi collaborates with his elder brother Ivan, a doctor and occasional scriptwriter. Together, they co-wrote the screenplays for Darkman and Army of Darkness. Ivan also contributed to story and script development for the three Spider-Man films. |
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