Get the latest gossip

David Emge Dies: Zombie Flyboy In Horror Classic ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ Was 77


David Emge, whose brief acting career included a performance that would become iconic to horror fans – he played the doomed pilot-turned-zombie in George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead …

David Emge, whose brief acting career included a performance that would become iconic to horror fans – he played the doomed pilot-turned-zombie in George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead – died January 20 at the West River Health Campus in Evansville, Indiana. Emge began his acting career at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in 1971, landing a small role in the lowbrow 1976 sex comedy The Liberation Of Cherry Jankowski(a.k.a. A photo of Emge’s dead-eyed, blood-spatter Zombie Stephen would become the most famous image from the film, used in promotional material and capturing the lasting attention of generations of horror fans, among them a young Simon Pegg, future director of the 2004 horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Deadline

Read more on:

Photo of zombie flyboy

zombie flyboy

Photo of david emge

david emge

Photo of ‘dawn

‘dawn