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Rudy Ricci was born on 14 February 1940 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Dawn of the Dead (1978), Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985). He was married to Mary Jane Ricci. He died on 8 March 2012 in Clairton, Pennsylvania, USA.
- Writer, Actor, Director
- February 14, 1940
- Rudy Ricci
- March 8, 2012
Aug 31, 2010 · As originally written, Ben was a resourceful but rough and crude-talking trucker, a role initially envisioned for Rudy Ricci. Those plans changed when a 31-year-old African-American actor named...
- The Original Idea Was For An Alien Comedy.
- George Romero Was Heavily Inspired by I Am Legend.
- Duane Jones Rewrote His Character’S Dialogue.
- The Fake Blood Was Made on The Cheap.
- The Nude Ghoul Caused A Spectator Scene on Set.
- Three Different Crew Members Accidentally Set Themselves on Fire During Filming.
- Romero and Russo Both Made Cameos.
- Jones Fought Against An Alternate Ending For Ben.
In early 1967, writer/director George A. Romero, writer John A. Russo, and actor Rudy Ricci were working together at the Latent Image, their Pittsburgh-based commercial film company, when they decided it was time to try their hand at making a feature film. Though the effort eventually produced Night of the Living Dead, early concepts were very diff...
Armed with Russo’s flesh-eating concept, Romero went to work, pairing it with a story he’d been working on that the director said “basically ripped off” Richard Matheson’s apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend. Russo later recalled that Romero returned with “about 40 really excellent pages,” including the opening in the cemetery and the arrival at t...
The character of Ben was originally written as an angry, rough truck driver, with somewhat crude dialogue to reflect that. When actor Duane Jones came aboard the production, he began revising the dialogue. “As I recall, I believe that Duane himself upgraded his own dialogue to reflect how he felt the character should present himself,” actor/produce...
Night of the Living Deadwas made on a budget of less than $150,000, which meant everything from props to sets had to be created on the cheap. Since the film was shot in black and white, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so either red ink or chocolate syrup was used, depending on the desired effect in each shot. For the scene in ...
Reasoning that at least some of the “ghouls” (Romero never referred to the creatures using the word zombies) would have woken up in the morgue and walked away naked, the crew opted for a single living dead extra to be nude on camera, and enlisted a local artist’s model for the job. When word spread that the production planned a nude scene during on...
To add to the realism of the zombie attack scenes, both Russo and actor Bill Hinzman—who played the iconic “Cemetery Ghoul” in the opening sequence—volunteered to be set on fire. Russo was lit on fire during the scene when the survivors are throwing makeshift Molotov cocktails at the undead, while Hinzman poured lighter fluid on his suit so he coul...
Night of the Living Dead’s co-creators make cameo appearances in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.
One of the film’s most famous elements is its grim ending, in which Ben, having survived the night, is shot by the sheriff’s zombie-hunting posse and thrown on the fire. At one point, a happier ending for the film was considered, but Jones fought it and won. “I convinced George that the Black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all...
Rudolph J. "Rudy" Ricci of Clairton, a writer and filmmaker who was part of the idea mill behind the horror classic, died Thursday March 8 following a fall likely exacerbated by health problems. He was 72.
Dec 11, 2023 · While writer-actor Rudy Ricci was originally considered for the role (Ricci ended up playing one of the ghouls), Romero eventually hired Jones, an up-and-comer working in New York to make a...
Mar 8, 2012 · Rudy Ricci is known as an Actor, Screenplay, Writer, Story, Director, and Other. Some of his work includes The Return of the Living Dead, There's Always Vanilla, The Booby Hatch, and The Devil and Sam Silverstein.
writer, actor. 72 years biography, photo, best movies and TV shows, news, birthday and age, Date of Death. «Night of the Living Dead Part II», «The Return of the Living Dead» (1985), «The Booby Hatch» (1976), «The Devil and Sam Silverstein» (1976), «Dawn of the Dead» (1978)...
