EVANS CITY — Ella Mae Smith recalls a scene from “Night of the Living Dead” in which she, her late husband and a pack of others playing zombies for the 1968 cult classic were trying to break into a local farmhouse to eat the occupants.

“The ghouls were trying to get in and breaking boards and things, and a board flew and hit (director George Romero) in the head,” Smith remembered. “He said, 'No sweat, keep going, keep going.'”

Romero, 77, died on Sunday in Toronto after what his production partner called “a brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer.”

The director with the distinctive glasses who filmed the iconic zombie movie, “Night of the Living Dead,” largely in Evans City was a young director when he and a group of film friends decided to shoot the movie in the borough.

In a 2011 letter of support for the effort to restore the Evans City Cemetery chapel from the movie, Romero recalled his decision to film in the tiny borough more than 50 years ago.

“We had no reason to believe that anyone would support us in our aspirations. But the people of Evans City did,” Romero wrote. “They welcomed us, in some cases fed us, and occasionally even agreed to play small roles in the film. They gave us all their support and then some.”

He said the people of Evans City took on the filmmaker's hopes and dreams as if they were their own, and accepted the far-fetched idea that the film could succeed.

“The people of Evans City knew nothing about box office shares or audience response polls,” Romero recalled. “We believed, so they believed. And, in a hundred ways, they enabled us to complete the film.”

Smith, the last surviving ghoul — now known as a zombie — from the movie, said the film was shot in various locations around the borough between May and October in the mid-1960s.

She said in all that time and while directing a host of townspeople who were a far cry from professional actors, Smith never saw Romero lose his temper.

“He was a very nice man,” Smith said. “He didn't yell at you or anything.”

Smith suspects Romero and his crew hired her and her husband to perform as ghouls because they lived the closest to the farmhouse where much of the movie was filmed.

“I think they asked us because we were so close to where they were working and when they were working we would have complained about the noise, which we wouldn't have,” Smith said. “I think they thought if we were involved, we wouldn't complain.”

She said the townsfolk who portrayed the flesh-eating zombies in the movie didn't take the gig very seriously.

“We were just having fun,” Smith said. “Who would have ever thought (the movie) was going to be the way it is?”

When the townsfolk, made up to look like walking corpses who had escaped their graves, asked Romero what they were supposed to do, Smith recalled his reply.

“Just walk around and act like you're dead,” Smith said.

Smith was able to visit with Romero when he attended a “Night of the Living Dead” festival in 2014 in Evans City.

“We talked about how we were and the movie,” Smith recalled, “and we laughed about things.”

She said she learned of Romero's passing on the Monday morning news.

“I felt terrible,” she said. “I'm just so sorry to hear that he has passed away.”

Although he did not participate in the making of “Night of the Living Dead,” Evans City Mayor Dean Zinkhann realizes Romero's accidental contribution to the borough through the making and success of the horror classic.

“He meant a lot to Evans City,” Zinkhann said. “He will be sorely missed.”

Followers of the cult classic from around the globe continue to visit the Evans City cemetery and the monument to the movie placed near the library a few years back by the Rotary Club and private donors.

Three of Romero's fans came to the Evans City Cemetery on Monday afternoon to reflect on the life of their favorite director and pay their respects.

One was Joseph Bagnato, a Mount Lebanon, Allegheny County, native who now lives in Florida.

Bagnato was visiting in the area and headed straight to the cemetery where “Night of the Living Dead” was filmed when he heard the news about Romero's death.

“I'm paying my respects to a legend,” he said as he peered at the headstones that appeared in the movie.

Bagnato said his mother, then a Pittsburgh National Bank employee, helped refinance Romero's house back in the day and also partly financed the movie.

He was shocked to hear Romero say at a horror convention that he remembered Bagnato's mother and her loan.

A pair of Romero fans, Bill Yanity and Kris McKain, both of Pittsburgh, were heading to Moraine State Park when they saw the Evans City exit on Interstate 79.

“We had to stop,” Yanity said.

He said he has seen all of Romero's movies, and they all share a common element. “They're monster movies with a social commentary,” Yanity said.

He also met Romero on several occasions at horror conventions.

“He was very tall,” Yanity said. And he was very charming and easygoing.”

McKain said in Romero's films it is left to the viewer to decide if the main characters are really monsters or simply humans acquiescing to their base human desires.

He pointed to “Martin” as one of his favorite Romero films.

“It's a love letter to Pittsburgh,” McKain said.

Yanity summed up the thoughts of all area horror fans upon the loss of another living piece of “Night of the Living Dead.

“If you're from the Pittsburgh area, how can you not love George Romero?”