Dan Hicks

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Dan Hicks was born in Pontiac, the Oakland County seat north of Detroit, and became part of the circle of Michigan filmmakers and actors around Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert that grew out of the Detroit suburbs. His feature debut was Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987), in which he played Jake, the surly local guide who helps lead Annie to the cursed cabin. He followed it with Bill Roberts in Scott Spiegel's supermarket slasher Intruder (1989), whose cast was drawn largely from the same group, and with Skip Altwater in Raimi's Darkman (1990). He kept appearing in Raimi projects for decades, with small parts in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). He announced a stage 4 cancer diagnosis in June 2020 and died at his California home weeks later, at 68.

Highlights

1. Jake in Evil Dead II (1987)
2. Bill Roberts in Intruder (1989)
3. Skip in Darkman (1990)
4. Small roles in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)