Once dubbed
Queen of the
super eight B movies, Ellen Sandweiss was born December 30th, 1958 in
Detroit, Michigan. She was a friend of
Sam Raimi and
Bruce Campbell back in their
high school years, and one of the first talents Raimi believed in enough to feature her in his earliest films. Some of the early Raimi films she starred in include
Shemp Eats The Moon and
Within the Woods, where she played Bruce Campbell's girlfriend. Perhaps most notably though, Sandweiss portrayed the part of Cheryl in 1981, in the film
The Evil Dead. The plot? A handful of people find themselves lost in the woods. Then the forces of evil are unleashed and, well you get the idea.
Cheryl was one of five principal characters in the film, and the one of the five not paired up romantically. Cheryl's the one that wanders off into the woods, and is consequently raped by them. Yeah, you read correctly. She's
raped by the woods, I
kid you not. Perhaps one of the earliest, most risque and daring scenes of its kind in
horror filmmaking. Then Cheryl goes mental, gets possessed by evil forces, floats in the air (conveniently next to the window), stabs another girl in the
Achilles' tendon, and is then trapped under the
cellar door for about a third of the film. By that point it's pointless to describe further, because Sandweiss is no longer playing the role. There's so much makeup and costuming that many
fake Shemps played the role for the rest of the film and most are not able to tell.
After her performance in The Evil Dead, Sandweiss kinda
fell off the radar of cinema. Rather than continuing to work in film, she enrolled in the
University of Michigan and earned both a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in theater, the latter focusing on theater management. So her career has been largely behind the scenes with occasional stage work, voice over work, and singing gigs for night clubs. She's known to have a magnificent singing voice. Her favorite role however, has been that of loving
wife and devoted
mother. It is perhaps a role she'll never win an Oscar for, but any loving wife and devoted mother would perhaps agree that she should.
In 2004, Sandweiss returned to
cinema, by playing the role of Paula for the motion picture
Satan's Playground. The plot? A handful of people find themselves lost in the woods. Sound like it's up her alley.