Author: theLogBook.com

Oscar-winning actor Martin Landau, a fixture of genre TV and movies since the late 1950s, dies at the age of 89. The star of such series as Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999, Landau was also a renowned acting teacher, and was in demand both before and after his TV heyday with roles in North By Northwest, Crimes And Misdemeanors, and Ed Wood, in which his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in his waning years brought him an Academy Award. He worked steadily through his eighties, in both on-screen roles and voice roles, with some projects yet to be released at the time of his death.

Pioneering horror film director George A. Romero dies at the age of 77 after a battle with lung cancer. In 1968, his low-budget shocker Night Of The Living Dead all but gave birth to the zombie horror genre. Some of his later films attempted to tackle different subject matter, meeting with box office indifference until he returned to the zombie genre with Dawn Of The Dead (1976), which earned back more than 100 times its production budget. High-profile works after that included the Stephen King-written Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988), and a third film in his zombie cycle, Day Of The Dead (1985). Sticking this time with his connection to the genre, Romero continued to be involved in spinoffs for comics, internet shorts, and further films, including Road Of The Dead, a movie he promoted shortly before his death. His movies remain immensely influential in the horror genre.