Enter Joe Unitas’ photography studio in Peters Township, and it’s like walking into a time capsule. There are black and white stills of himself and his more famous cousin, Johnny, during their days together at the University of Louisville and with the Baltimore Colts. All throughout the tiny space there are remembrances of a life well-lived.
From his short-lived professional football career that ended due to back and heart ailments to his work as a photographer, cameraman and lighting director on the cult classic “Night of the Living Dead”, the timeline of Unitas’ life is here in his refurbished garage. Some of the photos are framed and mounted on his wood-paneled walls. Others are in 5x7 or 4x6 frames on bureaus that line a perimeter of the room. And yet others are squirreled away in filing cabinets that he’ll open from time to time when he searches for something from his past.
“It all goes back to my mother,” Joe said. “She had this blue camera, and she would take pictures of me and my brother and my sister when we were growing up. I loved the sound the camera made. I loved the click of the camera.”
In his younger days, some 65 years ago, Joe Unitas was a 6-foot-1, 230-pound offensive tackle for South Hills High School. That’s the size of a linebacker today, but Unitas said he towered over his classmates in the 1950s.
He was born and raised in Beechview. From time to time, he’d play with his cousin Johnny, who was two years older and lived in Brookline, an abutting city neighborhood separated by West Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh’s South Hills.
“Johnny U” — also nicknamed “The Golden Arm” — would go onto a fantastic career with the Baltimore Colts and is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He remains one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.
Joe Unitas would follow in Johnny’s footsteps for a while. A chance meeting with his cousin is how Joe ended up at Louisville. Joe attended Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina for one year after graduating from South Hills High School, but he came home disenchanted because he wasn’t playing as a freshman.
“I was sitting on the bus one day and I said to myself, ‘What am I doing here?’” Joe said. “I was all-city at South Hills, and I couldn’t get on the field. So I came home. I saw Johnny on Brookline Boulevard one day, and he asked what I was doing. I told what happened. He said, ‘Let me see if I can get you a tryout at Louisville.’”
Joe Unitas ended up playing three seasons for Louisville. He even got a tryout with the Colts in 1957, but team doctors discovered he had scoliosis and a rapid heartbeat. He was released before the season began.
“It was very disappointing,” Joe said.
The end of his athletic career was the beginning of his life’s work in photography and the entertainment business.
Unitas filmed commercials for Duquesne Light, Iron City Beer and Heinz among other local businesses. It was after filming a commercial for Duquesne Light that he purchased six lights from the utility company for his growing business.
When George Romero was getting set to film “The Night of the Living Dead” in 1968 he hired Unitas as his lighting supervisor. He’s listed on the film’s IMDb web page. He also did the lighting for a 1974 documentary on O.J. Simpson titled “Juice on the Loose.”
Unitas, 84, is retired and lives with his wife, Lorraine, in Peters. They celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary earlier this month.
His next assignment is figuring out what to do with all of his photos and other mementos at his studio.
A couple of his favorites are from 1991. Joe went to Baltimore to spend the day with Johnny and photographed him at old Memorial Stadium. It was the only time he photographed his cousin.
Johnny would die 11 years later, but his memory lives on in Joe’s studio.
“He’s still here,” Joe said.
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
First Published: March 4, 2020, 11:45 a.m.
