Kerwin Mathews, 81; fantasy film hero
By Dennis McLellan
Times Staff Writer
11:35 AM PDT, July 10, 2007
Kerwin Mathews, who earned a niche in film history as the handsome hero
who battled a Cyclops, a dragon and a sword-wielding skeleton in the
1958 fantasy classic "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," has died. He was 81.
Mathews, who was best known for his fantasy and horror films, died in
his sleep at his San Francisco home sometime Wednesday night or
Thursday morning, said Tom Nicoll, his partner of 46 years.
The tall, dark-haired Mathews was a Columbia Pictures contract player
when he was cast as the lead in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," which
featured stop-motion animated creatures by special effects legend Ray
Harryhausen.
"He was very good in it," Harryhausen said from his home in London. "I
get a lot of fan mail saying they think he was the best Sinbad. We've
had three or four different Sinbads."
Science fiction and fantasy film expert Tom Weaver said that "as an
actor in the 1950s, Kerwin Mathews came across as the all-American,
farm-boy-next-door type — as unlikely a candidate to play an Arabian
Nights hero as could possibly be imagined. But for young American
monster movies fans, that made him the perfect identification figure,
and he became our favorite hero in that fairy-tale-monster genre."
"Part of the challenge of appearing in those stop-motion monster movies
was having to act opposite nothing — to cower in front of a giant
that's not there, to sword-fight a skeleton that's not there. All the
monsters were added later by Ray Harryhausen."
If Mathews had not been able to "interact with nothing" as well as he
did, Weaver said, "the monsters would not have been believable, despite
all of Harryhausen's painstaking efforts. But Mathews did a fabulous
job, which went a long ways toward 'selling' those scenes."
Harryhausen praised Mathews' ability to maintain the illusion that he
was battling the skeleton and other creatures. "His eyes were always
concentrated on the [unseen] subject," he said.
Mathews also appeared in "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" (1960), with
stop-motion special effects by Harryhausen, and "Jack the Giant Killer"
(1962), with stop-motion effects by Projects Unlimited.
In a 1987 interview with Starlog magazine, Mathews said that filming
the famous sword fight with the skeleton in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,"
a lot-budget film shot in Spain, was "an exciting experience for me."
"I believed I was making as valid a contribution to the world of
theater as if I had been playing Hamlet," he said. "We shot that sword
fight in a cave in Majorca. We started filming one night at sundown and
worked straight through for 24 hours, because they could only afford
the cave for one night."
In a 1989 Starlog interview, "Sinbad" director Nathan Juran said
Mathews never complained.
"When we finally finished the sequence, I noticed that his sword hand
was covered with blood," said Juran. "He had worked so hard that he had
scraped off the skin on that hand. I marveled that he did all that
sword fighting and never said a word about the pain he was in. Kerwin
was the epitome of a professional. He gave a hell of a performance."
An only child, Mathews was born in Seattle on Jan. 8, 1926. Shortly
thereafter, he and his divorced mother moved to Janesville, Wis. In
high school, Mathews recalled in the 1987 interview, "a kind high
school teacher put me in a play, and that changed my life."
After two years in the Army Air Forces during World War II, he attended
Beloit (Wis.) College on drama and music scholarships. He stayed at
Beloit three years after graduating and taught speech and dramatic
arts, and also appeared in regional theater. He also taught high school
English in Lake Geneva, Wis., before moving to Hollywood in 1954.
Mathews was an actor at the Pasadena Playhouse when he met the head of
casting for Columbia Pictures and was signed to a seven-year studio
contract.
Among his other film credits are "The Devil at 4 O'Clock," "Man on a
String," "Pirates of Blood River," "Battle Beneath the Earth,"
"Octaman," "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf" and "Nightmare in Blood."
His favorite role was starring as composer Johann Strauss Jr. in "The
Waltz King," a 1963 two-part segment of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World
of Color" that was filmed on location in Europe.
Mathews, who moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, spent his
post-acting career selling antiques and furniture.
A celebration of his life is pending in San Francisco.
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