Jessica Campbell, the actress who played Carver High School’s firebrand student presidential candidate Tammy Metlzer in the 1999 cult classic Election, has died. Per Deadline and a verified crowdfunding page arranged by her cousin, the former actress died suddenly on December 29 after collapsing in a bathroom in Portland. As of now, her cause of death is unknown. “Her passion for life and the people in it was astounding,” reads the tribute in the GoFundMe campaign for Campbell’s memorial. “In addition to the impressive energy she poured into her own life, Jessica, on multiple occasions, dropped everything to travel across state lines and care for her loved ones in need. She was fun, she was loud, she was compassionate and loyal; no matter what she did, she was always uniquely Jessica.” She was 38.
Though Alexander Payne’s enduring adaptation centers on the fiery ambition of Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), Campbell’s character has long been heralded as the hero of the story, galvanizing the school against the race by asserting her perspective about the “same pathetic charade” in a rousing, refreshingly honest speech. Sharp-tongued and fiercely passionate, Campbell was championed by the indie film community and fans for a standout performance that matched the energy of veterans Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. Her work in Election was so resonant that it landed her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance. She then went on to appear on two episodes of Freaks And Geeks and in Rose Troche’s The Safety Of Objects. She left acting in 2002, opting for a quieter but still adventurous life as a mother and naturopathic practitioner. Campbell is survived by her 10-year-old son, her husband Daniel, her mother and extended family.
102 Comments
Tammy actually won the election! This is sad I really don’t know much about her career after this, but she was way too young.
Tammy withdrew, Chris what’s his face would have won but he voted for Tracy instead of himself.
And she got sent off to an all girls school when she found love.I had a lot of gay women friends who cheered for her.
Tammy won the write in which had more votes than either candidate, but unfortunately could not win because of withdrawing.
Very sad…the image of her character watching the power converter comes back to me at the strangest times
Same. That is such a good shot.
This is sad. Also when someone my age (actually she was two years younger) dies it sends chills down the back of my fucking neck.
Same age as you, and same reaction.
I’ll be 40 in March, so yeah…I’m right there with you.
i can’t wait to die, i got sick-ass urn lined up i found on facebook. I’m gonna look like i’m doing 120 when i’m just sitting there. in an urn.
I’m 43. Can confirm. It’s fucked up. One of my oldest friends – grew up two doors down from her, knew her since I was probably 4 or 5, a year younger than me – died of a massive stroke last August. I’ve lost some friends my age to tragic circumstances (suicide, overdose, vehicle accident, etc) but this is the first close friend my age to die of something health related. And it just came out of fucking nowhere.
I’ve got until July at least.
I think I speak for all of us: We’re not millennials dangit. Gen Y was a term people used to use. What the heck happened?!
I will never except the Millennial or Gen Y monikers. I was born in ‘81, that’s Gen X damnit and I will hear nothing to the contrary.
I support this position. Graduated in 1999 or sooner should equal gen x
That’s my thinking, too. If you were 18 before 2000, that’s Gen X.
1981 is technically Gen X (as the Millennial label was first used to describe the born in 1982/class of 2000 in Time Magazine). But there’s basically a bridge mini-cohort from roughly 1979 to 1983: the Xennials or the Oregon Trail generation. Old enough to remember dial-up, in high school for Columbine or in college for 9/11, age peers of Beyonce, Chris Evans, Donald Glover, Anne Hathaway, Pete Buttigieg, etc.
I am this demo and yet weirdly don’t know anyone under 55 who likes Pete Buttigieg
Well, good news for you since ‘82 is the supposed start year for the millennial generation. Also, and this may be blunt, fuck generational monikers. There are people in my age group, 25-35, that act more like their boomer parents than anyone else in our generation, but they’re still technically “millennials”.
Oh no, I agree, it’s all bullshit made up by marketing firms. I’m just sayin, if someone has to refer to “my generation” I’ll stab anyone who calls me a millennial. At least Gen X sounds cool…
Better stock up on sweaters. It’s only going to get worse.
Fucking same, I turned 40 less than a month ago lol
Hey, me too!
Happy belated birthday, internet stranger! 😊
Same! If they had a long term disease it doesn’t, but when it’s just “oh someone in their mid 30s just collapsed and died suddenly in their home”… ugh. Goodbye, sleep.
It only gets worse as you get older. Especially when you know the people.Maybe if I was 75, or something like that it would be more expected. But at 53 it doesn’t seem that old that this should be happening to people my age and younger.
I don’t have a specific number in my head but I wanna see my kid graduate, get married, and have kids of their own. I feel like if I can hit those milestones I can die satisfied.
I would imagine. I find myself now getting that funny feeling when somebody my parents’ age (late 60s) dies too.
I feel ya, I literally turn 40 two weeks from today. 😬
This is very sad—38 is way too young. I hope it had nothing to do with her role as a “naturopathic practitioner.”
The longer you live the more chills of those you get. I am in my late 40’s and about a third of the people I went to HS with have died at this point.
I am in my late 40’s and about a third of the people I went to HS with have died at this point.That is freaky. A very good friend of mine passed away in our early 30s but he had cystic fibrosis so we knew it was inevitable. And a guy the year below me drove head on into an 18 wheeler, almost certainly while on drugs. A guy the year ahead of me got cancer. But other than that I can’t think of any peers who have passed away.
“I am in my late 40’s and about a third of the people I went to HS with have died at this point.”Was your high school on a nuclear waste landfill? I ask because 92% of people live to at least their 50th birthday. So, for only 66% of your high school to have survived that long seems wildly improbably.
Well I grew up in a very small town, my graduating class was 350 people. a few have passed from different sorts of cancer, a few suicides, some of them passed from drug overdoses in the 90’s, some in traffic accidents, two passed on 9/11 in the TWC, one at the Boston Marathon bombing and about six have died from Covid that I am aware of.
Same – I’ll be 37 in a little over a week. Scary shit.
Why? Death isn’t a possibility, it’s inevitable. It’s either we drop dead unexpectedly, which honestly seems like the best way to go, or we creep into old age and spend our last few years in horrible pain, likely dying by some form of cancer as we become a huge financial and emotional burden on our families before dying in a puddle of our own filth.
Once we’re dead….we don’t know we’re dead. It’s not scary, it’s not jarring, it’s not confusing. It’s nothing. Dreamless sleep. Sudden death, compared to slow and agonizing? Not even a question worth considering.
My partner works in a long term care facility. She just had an 80 year old patient who was doing very well just drop dead of a heart attack (dnr order so they had to let it happen which I actually appreciate). At the same time, she has another patient who’s mind has been gone for years and is basically bound to a bed who has been ‘going to die any day now’ for like 4 years.It is so strange and random, how death takes us.Side note: get your end of life stuff in order or else you could end up drooling in a bed for 20 years in incredible pain because some random family member who isn’t up to making the hard decisions screwed you over by chickening out.
I’m 44 and starting to see more and more friends from back in the day dealing with death and medical issues. This is coming after losing a whole generation of family over the last several years to old age.
Same; I’m 39. Over the last few days I’ve read about several late-30s people who died suddenly, and it’s making me paranoid.
Yup. I’m now at that age where anybody younger than me dying is freak too.
Wait til you get older. My first thought was “god she’s young.”
Recent experience with the second part when professional wrestler Jon Huber died in late December. He was less than 6 months older than me, and I think it has hit me harder than any of the countless other wrestler deaths in the thirty-plus years I’ve been a fan.
I’m going with Covid, because thats usually the cause of death for people who suddenly just drop dead for no reason. On a completely different note a friend of a friend who happened to be a Magician died a few years ago and even after the coroner was done his cause of death was listed as unknown. My friend honestly believes that to be the best magic trick the guy ever did.
Early last year, I’d been chatting with a cute, younger guy (early 30s) on a dating app, and then at the start of the lockdowns he got covid. He recovered, but has been to the emergency room many times for what are basically heart failures. As far as that virus is concerned, we are all too old and weak. That guy is looking ahead to a lifetime of medical nightmares and debts.
Same age, same reaction. I feel lucky to be alive.
A 34 year old former coworker of mine who was a total health nut and the sweetest person in the world died of an aneurism earlier this week. Everything sucks and we’re all going to die.
Also same age as of the past November, and also the same reaction. Just… holy shit.
I’m younger than you by about 9 years and I feel similar.Mac Miller was my age and I felt the same chill when he passed away.
41 next month, these hit hard.*eyeballs that elliptical orbit exercise machine in the corner of the room*
She was exactly seven months and fifteen days younger than me.Welp, guess I’m going to be checking my pulse every hour for the next few days.
Same. Two years ago, my cat died from an aneurism. It was completely random. Since then, I have developed a mild case of death anxiety. And when i read about people dropping suddenly, esp when they’re my age (same as her btw), it creates a stress point. I have a four year old, so it freaks me out thinking if he’ll be okay, etc. I’ll also reflect it onto others. Thinking about what happens if they died. etc. Anyways, it’s not running my life, but it does pop in every once in a while.
Buckle up then. And call your mom while you still can.
goodfuck white peepol amirte
WHAT???!! Omg. I love this movie and I loved her in it. Jesus. May she RIP.
Everybody dies.
Thanks Lance Archer.
Oh snap, I had to look that up. That’s a dope theme! I’ve not followed WWE since Undertaker retired (the final retirement, not the multiple fake retirements).
He was barely in WWE. He’s currently in AEW after his success in New Japan.
Sweet!
Between Election and that Freaks and Geeks episode where she’s Seth Rogen I absolutely loved her as an actress. I was always disappointed she wasn’t in more stuff. This is awful
Man I loved her in those Freaks and Geeks eps. Really sad.
that Freaks and Geeks episode where she’s Seth RogenI must have missed that one.
Well, she had the gun and the holster.
She plays his girlfriend who was born with ambiguous genitalia.
that Freaks and Geeks episode where she’s Seth Rogen
When you’ sneaking comments at work. I mean obviously I’m embarrassed I missed that twice but you have to admit it’d have been a great episode if she did play him. Laugh and all.
Tuuuba girl
Oh. She was a naturopath. She probably got a UTI and tried to cure it with herbs.
This is really sad. RIP, Jessica.On a separate note…it saddens me so much that a lot of these announcements are accompanied by a GoFundMe page. You can’t even affort to die in this country nowadays…
You can, it’s just that money always helps.
She was so wonderful in Election. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see her in more things.
COVID death? I’m going to go with that …. RIP.
This is heartbreaking. I loved her as Amy/Tuba Girl on Freaks & Geeks. Seems wild that she was in only in two episodes. In my memory, she feels like a pretty important character.
I immediately recognized her, funny how some people just get kinda fixed in your mind even though you don’t have a ton of exposure to them. I was sure she’d acted in many more things.
Damn, just 38. Rest in peace.
That scene of her giving her election speech has been one I’ve posted many times in the comment sections here as one of the greatest ever in motion picture history.
Campbell was one of those character actors who made every role feel refreshingly honest and unactorly. Because she wasn’t beautiful by prevailing standards she had to play the weird girl or the crazy girl or the plain girl (or the plain guy’s girlfriend.) Like all too many women in the business, potential roles became rarer as she grew older and that’s so unfair but so business as usual.
I thought this headline was shorthand for “election crisis actress” and that the story was related to the insurrection somehow. Sorry, please carry on.
Easily the best character in Election, and the only one with a happy ending. Shame she didn’t act more, she had incredible presence on-camera.
Fun fact; all those kids in the stands were digitally composited. Not enough extras showed up the day of the shoot, so Alexander Payne had the ones who did show up just sit in different areas and filled it out in post.
It’s strange revisiting that movie now. The Tracy/Jim stuff is the most interesting, but that one Tammy speech is just pure joy. It kind of came out of nowhere and then the movie drops it, but it’s easily the most fun part of the whole movie. I STILL want to cheer that speech. I always felt her withdrawing was kind of a copout. Anyway, RIP Jessica.
See, if I was making the movie, I’d make the conflict between Tracy and Tammy. You have one person who really focuses on student government to get ahead, and another who wants to tear it down completely. That’d make the ending punchier, where Tammy gets everything she wants while Tracy realizes winning wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
And you get rid of all the creepy statutory rape stuff, to boot.
I can sort of see that, but even though Paul was a boring character to watch, it made more sense for Tracy to run against the rich, athletic, blandly attractive white guy who’s had everything handed to him his whole life and is completely underqualified for the job that Tracey’s prepared her whole life for. (DOES THAT REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING IN CURRENT US POLITICS). In what you’re proposing, it’s two different kind of angry underdogs, the one who wants to dominate the system, and the nihilist. Interesting, but a completely different movie.I think the statutory rape is so weirdly handled but it’s the most interesting part of the movie. Because no one, not Jim, not Tracey herself (for wildly different reasons) sees her as a victim or a child, even though she 100% is. It’s kind of glossed over. Even though it makes her more complex and tragic. It’s also the one element that couldn’t happen today because the whole movie depends on Jim being sympathetic to the audience, and that’s completely gone now.
Holy shit.That’s all I’ve got.
I hate to sound insensitive because I was a fan of her acting, Election is one of my favorite movies and she was one of my favorite parts of it. But her obituary mentions she was a “naturopathic practitioner” which it needs to be said is not recognized as a legitimate medical profession, it relies on pseudoscience, and rejects conventional medical treatment, so sadly those beliefs that she dedicated herself to might not be unrelated to her death.
I agree, and those who tend toward naturopathic and homeopathic beliefs also tend to be anti-vax, anti-mask and even covid deniers. Not saying any of that applies to her, just that they are often associated.
That may be true in many cases, but it hasn’t been my experience. The NDs I’ve met have all been very pro-science and pro normal medical treatment. They’re just more willing to try non medication treatment options first. They can go a little heavy on the supplements, but they’re better at dealing with chronic conditions, especially digestive ones.
I’m a big fan of science and Western medicine, in theory, but in my experience, most MDs prescribe medication like candy, and downplay potential side effects. And will not work with you when it comes to alternatives to medication, even if lifestyle modifications are just as likely to be effective.
NDs will work with you on lifestyle changes. They’re as guilty of over-prescribing supplements, but they tend to follow up better.
Obviously, naturopathy isn’t the answer for everything. I wouldn’t go to an ND about possible cancer. But I would go to a ND first if I was dealing with chronic heart burn, IBS, stress related conditions, insomnia, etc.
Obviously, not all “alternative medicine” is the same, but there are plenty of practioners who work with MDs/traditional western medicine.
I’m sorry you’ve had that experience with MDs. Every MD I’ve seen has stressed lifestyle interventions first and have been hesitant to prescribe anything until necessary. ND’s always say they want to get to the root cause, but that’s exactly what MD’s are doing, only without the supplements that can also have awful side effects.
“but it hasn’t been my experience” which is the issue. Claims based on anecdotal evidence is what drives people to quacks. The REAL treatments you discussed, like lifestyle changes and the like, are used to justify quackery like essential oils and anti-vaxx talk and that is when it all becomes dangerous and irresponsible.
From my ND I found out I am a shallow breather (how is that possible, a friend asked, you ride your bike abso-fucking-lutely everywhere!), shrug. Also, the magnesium powder she prescribed sold me (and I haven’t been able to find anywhere else) did help me sleep (and poop like a champ).
Wanted to congratulate you on something. I have been lurking many a comments sections on G/O, even back when it was Gawker. I like a lot of the reporting, and the conversations in the comments always amuse me, but I never quite pulled the trigger on actually making an account until now, mostly because this article (and the one MSN shoved in my face earlier today) hit close to home.
Jessica did have a degree in “natural medicine,” but she was an acupuncturist. The reporting here is a bit lacking, but it may have been the best they could dig up as she was (as noted) very private. As a science student myself, I do think acupuncture efficacy is mixed, at best, but we were friends from years back and I still regularly chatted with her on Facebook. She was very pro-science, super excited about the covid-19 vaccine, and never pushed crystals or essential oils or anything you might associate with naturopathy. She actually did quite a bit of medical research into my wife’s rare neuropathy issues, and told me to get a pulse oximeter when my family got sick around Christmas. She was seemingly completely healthy, and her family hasn’t mentioned a COD (been giving them space). I can understand a healthy skepticism of naturopathy, but in this case, it is quite likely to be unrelated.
“…which it needs to be said…”I mean did it? Lady died, who cares whether her profession was legitimately medical, or merely therapeutic? And her beliefs might be related to her death, they might not, you have no way of knowing. It could be the global pandemic we have going on, or it could have been a million other things, but it seems like a weird move to flex on Naturopathy on this lady’s death post. It wasn’t even central to the article, it’s just what she’s been doing for the past 19 years.
I had the same reaction.
what the fuck, and often does not reject conventional treatment, it combines both. very unnecessary.
After this comment, I question whether you really hate to sound insensitive. How do you feel about being insensitive?If you’re so anti-neuropathic medicine maybe go find a post about it and comment there. No need to jump in on an article on the death of a woman who left behind a grieving family.
“…it needs to be said is not recognized as a legitimate medical profession, it relies on pseudoscience, and rejects conventional medical treatment…”All good things in my book, considering the outdated bullshit dogma and drug peddling most doctors practice. Also, you suck.
I developed an immediate crush on her when I saw Election (I would have been 14 at the time), and was happy to see her in Freaks and Geeks after that. I always hoped to see her pop up again, but then a few years ago I got curious and found out she quit acting and only had one or two other roles.
Sometimes heroes don’t wear capes. Sometimes they wear plaid. Actually they always wear plaid.
She was an all time great movie younger sister in Election. She was one of my favorites from that movie.
So sad. I remember thinking in the past about this movie and her performance in particular. Her poor son. So young to lose his mother.
Her name is Tammy Metzler, not Metlzer.
RIP Jessica Campbell. Election is one of my favorites, never tire of watching it.
I felt the same way when Brittany Murphy died. She was a year younger than me.
Similar thing happened to a doctor of mine. A couple years after he did my surgery, he unexpectedly dropped dead while scrubbing in for a different patient. Older than Ms. Campbell, though.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of an actor leaving the business to become a doctor. Acting must be so stressful that being a physician is (emotionally) easy by comparison.