Taso N. Stavrakis

Who is Taso N. Stavrakis?

Taso Nicholas Stavrakis 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". 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.

Post-college gigs in New York 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.