Karl Hardman

American actor (1927–2007)

Karl Hardman was born Karl Hardman Schon in Pittsburgh on 22 March 1927 - "Hardman" was the stage name he took when RKO Radio Pictures signed him as a contract player, and the family name is why his daughter is credited on this film as Kyra Schon. He was an Army combat photographer in the Second World War, and came back to Pittsburgh in the late 1940s to a career in radio: he was a voice on Rege Cordic's early-morning show at WWSW and then KDKA from 1954, playing Louie the Garbage Man, Roquefort Q. LaFarge and Sir Reginald Frothington - the last of whom became Reggie P. Frothingslosh, the spoof nobleman who fronted a fictional ale sold as "the beer so light the foam is on the bottom".

In May 1963 he opened Hardman Associates Inc., a recorded-sound production house on Smithfield Street, later Hardman Eastman Associates. By 1975 it had offices in New York, Munich and Dusseldorf and was making material for Sesame Street and The Electric Company. This film's own main title card names HARDMAN ASSOC., INC. for make-up and lists HARDMAN ASSOCIATES, PITTSBURGH, PA. among the facilities it was produced through - and the newsroom scenes were shot in the Smithfield Street office itself.

On Night of the Living Dead he was a producer with Russell Streiner and played Harry Cooper, the man in the cellar, opposite Marilyn Eastman - his business partner and companion - as Helen. He also made the sound effects with her, applied the ghouls' make-up, and took most of the production stills that became the film's publicity. His Lincoln is the car the general gets into in the Washington scene, and John Russo says the tire iron Ben swings came out of its trunk. He died on 22 September 2007, aged 80.