Film & TV / Music
Ellen Sandweiss
born 1958 · actress, singer
Cheryl in The Evil Dead, a Detroit-born high school friend of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell whose film premiered at Detroit's Redford Theatre in 1981.
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Ellen Sandweiss was born in Detroit into a Jewish family and grew up in the northern suburbs, where she graduated in 1977 from Wylie E. Groves High School in Beverly Hills. There she acted in school plays and then in the Super 8 movies that her classmates Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were shooting around Oakland County, the teenage workshop that grew into one of the most famous independent horror productions ever made. She studied at the University of Michigan and in 1979 joined Raimi and Campbell on location in Tennessee to play Cheryl, Ash Williams' sister and the first of the cabin's victims to be possessed, in The Evil Dead. The finished film had its premiere at the Redford Theatre in northwest Detroit on October 15, 1981, with Raimi dressing the old movie palace for the occasion. Sandweiss later worked as a singer and returned to the screen in My Name Is Bruce (2007) and Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Highlights
- Cheryl Williams in The Evil Dead (1981)
- Made Super 8 films with classmates Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell at Groves High School
- The Evil Dead premiered at Detroit's Redford Theatre on Oct. 15, 1981
- Cameo in Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · until 1977
Wylie E. Groves High School
Public high school where Sandweiss, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were classmates; she graduated in 1977.
Studied here · late 1970s
University of Michigan
Sandweiss earned her degree here.
Related place · 1981
Redford Theatre
1928 neighborhood movie palace, still showing films with its theater organ; The Evil Dead had its premiere screening here on Oct. 15, 1981.