American-Canadian filmmaker, writer and editor, best known for his series of gruesome and satirical horror films about an imagined zombie apocalypse, beginning in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, which is often considered a progenitor of the fictional zombie of modern culture. Other notable films in the series include Dawn of the Dead (1978 ) and Day of the Dead (1985). Aside from the Dead series, his works include The Crazies (1973), Martin(1978 ), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988 ) and The Dark Half (1993).

Romero is often noted as an influential pioneer of the horror film genre, and has been called an “icon” and the “Father of the Zombie Film.” His zombie films were remade in the 2000s starting with Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Day of the Dead & a 6th zombie movie in Survival Of The Dead in 2009. Romero died Sunday in his sleep after a “brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer,” according to a family statement to The Times provided by his longtime producing partner, Peter Grunwald. He was 77. Romero died while listening to the score of one his favorite films, 1952’s “The Quiet Man,” with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher Romero, and daughter, Tina Romero, at his side, the family said.