Taso Nicholas Stavrakis (born July 12, 1957) is an American film and
television actor and stunt performer best known for his appearances in
the George A. Romero films Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, and Day of
the Dead. Recruited by his good friend and Carnegie-Mellon University
classmate Tom Savini, Stavrakis assisted with stunts and special
makeup effects on several seminal 1980s horror productions, including
the original Friday the 13th, in which he portrayed "The Prowler" (as
the unidentified killer was initially referred to in Victor Miller's
screenplay). Romero frequently joked that Stavrakis should be included
in the Guinness Book of World Records for having appeared as the most
zombies in his Dead series (5 in Dawn and 6 in Day).Post-college gigs
in New York City included numerous off-Broadway plays and commercial
jobs, including the first human incarnation of the Captain Morgan
character for a rum advertisement and Battlestar Galactica's Lucifer
character for an automobile commercial.Offered the opportunity to
portray villain Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part 2, Stavrakis
turned down the role as his friend Savini had declined to create the
film's makeup effects. He instead took an opportunity to create
special makeup effects for He Knows You're Alone, an early thriller by
Armand Mastroianni (and incidentally Tom Hanks's first feature film),
with whom Stavrakis would work again on the 2006 cinematic adaptation
of The Celestine Prophecy.Despite this early emphasis on makeup,
Stavrakis eventually gravitated almost exclusively toward stunt work,
serving as stunt coordinator on Day of the Dead and the
Romero-scripted Creepshow 2 (1987), while his acting work during this
period included a brief stint on As the World Turns as Stavros, a
Greek interpreter.
television actor and stunt performer best known for his appearances in
the George A. Romero films Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, and Day of
the Dead. Recruited by his good friend and Carnegie-Mellon University
classmate Tom Savini, Stavrakis assisted with stunts and special
makeup effects on several seminal 1980s horror productions, including
the original Friday the 13th, in which he portrayed "The Prowler" (as
the unidentified killer was initially referred to in Victor Miller's
screenplay). Romero frequently joked that Stavrakis should be included
in the Guinness Book of World Records for having appeared as the most
zombies in his Dead series (5 in Dawn and 6 in Day).Post-college gigs
in New York City included numerous off-Broadway plays and commercial
jobs, including the first human incarnation of the Captain Morgan
character for a rum advertisement and Battlestar Galactica's Lucifer
character for an automobile commercial.Offered the opportunity to
portray villain Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th Part 2, Stavrakis
turned down the role as his friend Savini had declined to create the
film's makeup effects. He instead took an opportunity to create
special makeup effects for He Knows You're Alone, an early thriller by
Armand Mastroianni (and incidentally Tom Hanks's first feature film),
with whom Stavrakis would work again on the 2006 cinematic adaptation
of The Celestine Prophecy.Despite this early emphasis on makeup,
Stavrakis eventually gravitated almost exclusively toward stunt work,
serving as stunt coordinator on Day of the Dead and the
Romero-scripted Creepshow 2 (1987), while his acting work during this
period included a brief stint on As the World Turns as Stavros, a
Greek interpreter.
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