<P> The lights go out, and the zombies break through the barricades . Harry grabs Ben's rifle and threatens to shoot him . In the chaos, the two fight and Ben manages to wrestle the gun away and shoots Harry . Harry stumbles into the cellar and collapses next to Karen, mortally wounded . She has also died from her illness . The ghouls try to pull Helen and Barbra through the windows, but Helen frees herself . She returns to the refuge of the cellar to see Karen is reanimated and eating Harry's corpse . Helen is frozen in shock, and Karen stabs her to death with a masonry trowel . Barbra, seeing Johnny among the zombies, is carried away by the horde and devoured . As the zombies overrun the house, Ben fights off Karen and seals himself inside the cellar, where Harry and Helen are reanimating, and he is forced to shoot them . </P> <P> The next morning, Ben is awakened by the posse's gunfire outside . Upon venturing upstairs, the posse mistake him for one of the ghouls and kill him with a shot to the forehead . Ben's body is thrown onto a pile of corpses which are set ablaze . </P> <Ul> <Li> Duane Jones as Ben: An unknown stage actor, Jones' performance depicted Ben as a "comparatively calm and resourceful Negro" (a distinguished gentleman and former university professor, in real life), according to a movie reviewer in 1969 . Casting Jones as the hero was potentially controversial in 1968: it was not typical for a black man to be the hero of an American film when the rest of the cast was composed of white actors at the time, but Romero said that Jones simply gave the best audition . He was in a few other films after Night of the Living Dead and continued working as a theater actor and director until his death in 1988 . Despite his other film roles, Jones worried that people only recognized him as Ben . </Li> <Li> Judith O'Dea as Barbra Blair: A 23 - year - old commercial and stage actress, O'Dea once worked for Hardman and Eastman in Pittsburgh . O'Dea was in Hollywood seeking to enter the movie business at the time of audition . Starring in the film was a positive experience for her, she remarked in an interview . She admitted that horror movies terrified her, particularly Vincent Price's House of Wax (1953). Besides acting, O'Dea performed her own stunts, which she jokingly claimed amounted to "lots of running". "I honestly had no idea it would have such a lasting impact on our culture", assessing Night of the Living Dead . She was just as surprised by the renown the film brought her: "People treat you differently . (I'm) ho - hum Judy O'Dea until they realize (I'm) Barbra from Night of the Living Dead . All of a sudden (I'm) not so ho - hum anymore!" </Li> <Li> Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper: One of the film's producers (alongside Streiner), Hardman is also the voice of the newscaster heard on the radio of Johnny's car . </Li> <Li> Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper: Eastman also played a female ghoul eating an insect . </Li> <Li> Keith Wayne as Tom </Li> <Li> Judith Ridley as Judy: Ridley later co-starred in Romero's second feature There's Always Vanilla (1971). </Li> <Li> Kyra Schon as Karen Cooper: Hardman's 11 - year - old daughter, Schon also portrayed the mangled corpse on the house's upstairs floor that Ben drags away . </Li> <Li> Charles Craig as TV Newscaster / Ghoul </Li> <Li> Bill Hinzman as Ghoul: Hinzman was the zombie encountered by Barbra and Johnny in the cemetery . He reprised the role in new scenes that were filmed for the 30th - anniversary edition of the film . </Li> <Li> George Kosana as Sheriff McClelland: Kosana also served as the film's production manager . </Li> <Li> Russell Streiner (uncredited) as Johnny Blair: Streiner later served as an executive producer of the 1990 remake of the film, in which he makes a cameo appearance as Sheriff McClelland . </Li> <Li> Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille as a WIIC - TV Channel 11 news reporter: Cardille was well - known in Pittsburgh as a TV presenter who hosted a horror film anthology series, Chiller Theatre, on late Saturday nights in the 1960s and 70s . Cardille would later make a cameo appearance as the TV news reporter in the 1990 remake . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Duane Jones as Ben: An unknown stage actor, Jones' performance depicted Ben as a "comparatively calm and resourceful Negro" (a distinguished gentleman and former university professor, in real life), according to a movie reviewer in 1969 . Casting Jones as the hero was potentially controversial in 1968: it was not typical for a black man to be the hero of an American film when the rest of the cast was composed of white actors at the time, but Romero said that Jones simply gave the best audition . He was in a few other films after Night of the Living Dead and continued working as a theater actor and director until his death in 1988 . Despite his other film roles, Jones worried that people only recognized him as Ben . </Li>

Who starred in night of the living dead