George Kosana, who played Sheriff McClelland in the 1968 horror film “Night of the Living Dead,” has died at age 81, according to John Russo, who co-wrote the film with George A. Romero.
In a Facebook post Monday, Russo said that Kosana died “after a long battle with various illnesses.”
“GEORGE KOSANA, R.I.P. My close friend George Kosana, who played the sheriff in NOLD, has regrettably passed away after a long battle with various illnesses,” Russo wrote. “He will be greatly missed by me, by his fellow NOLD cast and crew members and by his many fans. For the past few days, I have been constantly reliving my many good and often funny remembrances of him.”
Born in Pennsylvania in 1935, Kosana also served as production manager on “Night of the Living Dead,” about a group of people trapped in a Pennsylvania farmhouse that’s attacked by a horde of “living dead” monsters.
Kosana reprised the role of Sheriff McClelland in 2012’s “Living Dead” and “My Uncle John Is a Zombie!” — which, according to IMDb, is currently in post-production.
Kosana’s other credits include 1971’s “There’s Always Vanilla,” 1976’s “The Booby Hatch” and “Incest Death Squad,” released in 2009.