Nick Tallo Obituary, Death – One more disheartening day for the Pittsburgh film community. Nick “Bomba” Tallo has passes away. Bomba was a wonderful person, and the hilarious tales he told would have you rolling on the floor laughing. His heart was as big as his jokes could be as dark as they became. I’ll never forget one of the very first jobs I ever had. While we were taking a break for lunch, he was relating a story about his childhood birthday party. He looked over, and I was completely taken aback, as shown by the fact that my mouth was wide open. When he saw my reaction, he burst out laughing so hard. After that, nothing he said was surprising in the least.
Thank you, Bomba, for being who you are and always giving me a reason to chuckle whenever I see you. My dear friend, I am going to miss you very much.
When we were introduced for the first time, it was in the middle of the 1960s at what is now known as Point Park University in Pittsburgh. During our time working together at the Pittsburgh Laboratory Theatre in the 1970s, the director Bill Royston posed the question to us as to whether or not we would be interested in participating in a children’s stage production for which we would be paid a few dollars each.
We entered the building to find an auditorium filled with primary school students shrieking. Bill made the announcement that we would be performing the play “Scrooge on Trial.” I believe that he came up with that title on the spot, given that none of us had any screenplays nor any concept of what we were going to do. Nick took on the role of Scrooge. The plan was that if Scrooge was found guilty by the “jury” of youngsters, three of the children would have the opportunity to strike him in the face with a pie.
I was the one who represented the prosecution. We spent approximately twenty minutes bumbling our way through the situation. Scrooge was determined to be guilty of breaking the spirit of Christmas by not being courteous. And Nick did a good job with his role. The first two children received individual pie dishes made of thin aluminum and filled with whipped cream. His face ended up being covered in a thick layer of white whipped cream. Nick was unfazed by any of it.
Nick took a direct hit from the dish, which was delivered by the third child, who sported a wicked grin. He let out a laugh. Nick’s nose began bleeding, and he mumbled something about slamming the child into the ground. Nick, on the other hand, seemed to take everything in stride. He rose up and gave his bows, despite the blood coming from his nose. He carried himself with a remarkable air of grace.
Following the applause from the children, we exited. After that, Nick spent the most of his time working behind the camera rather than in front of it. Nick is shown in this photograph dressed in his typical, understated attire while attending the Pittsburgh Comicon convention in 2005. Nicky had an uncanny ability to make people laugh with his outrageous yet genuine anecdotes. Conventions in Pittsburgh were always something I looked forward to since I knew Nick, or Bomba as he was more often known, would be there.