Gaylen Ross has only a handful of acting credits to her name, but the first of them remains significant enough even today for her to be permanently canonized in horror film history: “Dawn of the Dead.” Playing television producer Fran Parker for writer-director George A. Romero, Ross joins what’s otherwise a boys’ club cast to combat zombies (and post-apocalyptic boredom) in an abandoned shopping mall, in the process adding to the genre’s then-nascent collection of heroines who are forced to summon strength and resourcefulness in the face of unimaginable — and deadly — circumstances.
In the 45 years since the film’s release, Ross became an award-winning documentary filmmaker, trading Romero’s anti-consumerist metaphors for more literal explorations of social and historical causes with films like “Killing Kasztner” and “Beijing Spring.” Yet as she raises funds for her latest project, “Sapiro: The Jew Who Sued Ford,” “Dawn of the Dead’s…
