Karl Hardman Schon has passed away at the age of 80.

Night of the Living Dead has often been cited as one of the turning points in Horror cinema history, if not the one great demarcation defining the latter half of the 20th century for the genre. With a legacy that colossal it’s sometimes easy to forget that it took a lot of faith and sweat just to get it made. Karl Hardman Schon was one of the architects instrumental in the creation of Night of the Living Dead. It’s easy to just cite his role as an actor in the film as the stubbornly antagonistic Harry Cooper, but his participation behind-the-scenes, while not as glamourous, is certainly worth pointing out. One of the ‘ten’ in Image Ten, the production company formed around the film, Hardman not only contributed cash to the budget, shot the production stills and helped with casting, but he also chose and edited the score and, with the help of his partner Marilyn Eastman, the sound effects. It’s safe to assume that without Mr. Hardman Night of the Living Dead, and modern horror cinema, wouldn’t be as we know it today.

A remembrance by his daughter, Kyra Schon, can be found here, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a guestbook in which people can leave their sympathies. An interview with Karl Hardman Schon and Marilyn Eastman can be found here.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hardman. And thanks.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Zombies, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.