Famous zombie filmmaker George Romero passed away on the morning of July 16, 2017, he was 77, having died in his sleep following a "brief but aggressive battle with lung cancer", according to a statement by his longtime producing partner, Peter Grunwald. Romero died while listening to the score of one of his favorite films, The Quiet Man, with his wife, Suzanne Desrocher Romero, and daughter, Tina Romero, at his side.

He has been the one to make zombies/horror popular today still with his great movies:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Land of the Dead (2005), and had worked on the remakes for those films too and more like Creepshow (1982) and The Crazies (1973)
Zombies and horror wouldn't be what they are today without him... He will truly be missed and won't be the same without him.