George Andrew Romero (born February 4, 1940) is an American film director, screenwriter, editor and occasional actor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed Grandfather/KING of the Zombie.Starz Celebrating Zombiemania

Life and career

Romero was born in New York City to a Cuban-American father and a Lithuanian-American mother.The GENRE ONLINE.NET Interview - Writer and Director George A. RomeroMovies.about.com article His father worked as a commercial artist.George A. Romero Biography (1940–) Romero attended Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1960,George.html George Romero he began his career shooting short films and commercials. One of his early commercial films, a segment for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which Mr. Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy,Mr. Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy inspired Romero to go into the horror film business.Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2005) He and friends formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s, and they chipped in roughly $10,000 apiece to produce what became one of the most celebrated horror films of all time: Night of the Living Dead (1968). The movie, directed by Romero and co-written with John A. Russo, became a cult classic and a defining moment for modern horror cinema.

The films which followed were less popular: There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's Wife / Season of the Witch (1972) and The Crazies (1973). Though not as well received as Night of the Living Dead or some of his later work, these films have his signature social commentary while dealing with primarily horror-related issues at the microscopic level. The Crazies, dealing with a biospill that induces an epidemic of homicidal madness, and the critically acclaimed arthouse success Martin (1977), a film that strikingly deconstructs the vampire myth, were the two standout efforts during this period. Like almost all of his films, they were shot in or around Romero's favorite city of Pittsburgh.