Sophia Michaels
Mike Schank, the unlikely star of the cult 1999 documentary American Movie — about two Wisconsin friends making an ultra-low budget horror film — has died at the age of 56.
Schank’s friend Jackie Bogenberger told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he had been battling a “super rare” form of cancer in recent months. “It spread quickly everywhere throughout his body in a matter of weeks, touching almost everything except his brain,” Bogenberger said. “He did some chemo and radiation. One of the last things Mike said to me was, ‘Hey Jackie, I feel really bad for children who have cancer. They should never have to.’”
Schank became an independent film favorite for playing himself in American Movie, the “childhood friend” of Mark Borchardt, whose efforts to make the horror film Coven are the focus of the documentary. Schank, then a newly recovering alcoholic and addict (“I don’t party anymore,” he says in the film; he remained sober the rest of his life), becomes Borchardt’s most trusted crew member, ultimately scoring the film and providing one of cinema’s most memorable screams:
“RIP Mike Schank. Watch him in AMERICAN MOVIE and learn how to be a good friend,” actor and filmmaker Mark Duplass tweeted Thursday.
Coven director and friend Borchardt tweeted, “Stay strong forever, Mike…”
The surprise success of American Movie — it won best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival and became a cult favorite over the ensuing decades — led to a handful of opportunities, including a brief role in the 2001 film Storytelling and a voice cameo on Family Guy. Mostly though, Schank just hung around his native Milwaukee, “moseying around the neighborhood and offering a friendly hello to passersby,” the Milwaukee Record wrote.
“RIP Mike Schank, the sweet funny soul at the heart of the extraordinary doc ‘American Movie’. Me, Simon & Nick were obsessed with it and since they included Mike’s home number on the DVD extras, we called him from London one night,” Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright tweeted Thursday.
“Had a long-ish conversation with him. Very sweet, funny guy. I remember we said ‘If you’re ever in London, we’d love to take you out for a beer’ and he replied ‘Thanks… I don’t think I will be.’”
