Ross M Harris.
Ross Harris had a business supplying meat to butcher shops and supplied all the intestines used in Night of the Living Dead and asked to be credited specifically because of that. He can be seen in the background of some shots when the TV News is being shown with Charles Craig. He also was an investor of Image Ten and also played a fireman in The Crazies.
Ross Harris lived his life the way he raced his sports cars: with his foot on the gas pedal and a firm grip on the wheel.
The Squirrel Hill resident was a former meat market owner and jazz band musician who took up sports car racing in middle age, making him something of a modern-day Renaissance man: a butcher, a racer, a jazz music maker, and he was a devoted father to his two daughters, Georgia and her sister, Bonnie.
Mr. Harris was the owner of Harris-McKeever Markets and had stores in McKees Rocks, Caste Village, the South Side and on Larimer Avenue. But he sold the business in 1969 after divorcing his wife and winning custody of his daughters. In the process, he became one of the first fathers to be awarded custody of his children in Pennsylvania. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Mr. Harris invested in the stock market and Treasury bonds and rapidly learned the intricacies of Wall Street investing.
Unburdened of his business interests, Mr. Harris was able to devote more time to his saxophone. He had two bands, The Ross Harris Dixieland Band and the Ross Harris Orchestra, which played the Big Band sound, but jazz was his favorite.
He often played at the Hill House and loved to sit in on sessions at the Landen Grove, the Holiday Inn in Oakland and the Club Cafe.
In the 1960s, Mr. Harris got bit by the racing bug, falling in with the late Don Yenko.
He started off in a class called Showroom Stock Sedan and eventually moved up into other classes and continued to race sports cars when he was nearly 70.
At 67, he raced in the Sports Car Club of America's National Championship Race at Pocono International Speedway and he won the title of Northeast Division Champion of the Sports Car Club of America Steel Cities Region.
His racing career earned him induction in 1986 to the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
He was a familiar figure at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, working as a roving announcer for the races.
His most recent car was a Datsun 280Z, and he loved to take his two grandchildren for rides around the city or just to the car wash.
"The best tribute I could get is for my friends to remember me in their hearts."
Text and photos © Image Ten, Inc.
If you know of any family, friends or acquaintances that appeared as extras in the original Night of the Living Dead, please contact John Vullo at jmv3683@gmail.com
