Kerwin Mathews born 8 January 1926 (d. 2007)Kerwin Mathews was a virile, dashing actor who will be remembered for his portrayals of such fantasy heroes as Gulliver and Jack the Giant Killer, and in particular for his performance in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which has achieved cult status due to its thrilling score by Bernard Herrmann and the sensational stop-motion effects achieved by the master animator Ray Harryhausen.
The climactic battle between Mathews as Sinbad and a sword-fighting skeleton has become one of the iconic sequences in fantasy cinema. In the course of the film Mathews also had to fight giant vultures, a monstrous Cyclops and a fire-breathing dragon, and Harryhausen has stated that Mathews' contribution to their effectiveness should not be under-rated. 'Kerwin had an uncanny ability to visualise the image he was supposed to be seeing,' he said, 'and to give the sequences the much-needed eye contact between the actor and the animated figure, which would be inserted at a later time.'
Born in Seattle in 1926, Mathews was raised by his mother in Janesville, Wisconsin, after his parents' marriage broke up. At Benoit College, Wisconsin, which was noted for its drama programme, he shone at acting, but after graduation he spent several years teaching English before moving to Hollywood, encouraged by friends who told him he had the looks and talent to succeed in motion pictures. While appearing at the Pasadena Playhouse, Mathews was spotted by an agent, who arranged for him to meet Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures.
He made his screen début in Phil Karlson's tense thriller Five Against the House (1955), as one of five students who plan a casino robbery for fun, but are then persuaded to carry it out. Guy Madison and Kim Novak were top-billed, but Mathews had a prominent role as the bright student who originates the plot. His impressive showing won him a starring role in The Garment Jungle (1957), an uncompromising depiction of corruption in the dress manufacturing industry, with Mathews as a young man who returns from fighting in the Korean war to find himself in conflict with his father, who is paying a crime syndicate to quash the industry's union.
Mathews was then top-billed in a small-scale but superior and thoughtful war movie, Tarawa Beachhead (1958), as an idealistic Marine who sees a commanding officer murder another soldier during combat. Knowing he will not be believed if he reports it, he keeps silent, despite finding himself involved with the killer in both their private and professional lives.
He next starred in his most famous role in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, as the intrepid adventurer seeking the egg of a roc (a giant two-headed bird) that will restore his miniaturised sweetheart. Harryhausen had conceived the film, but encountered difficulty finding financing, since fantasy films were not fashionable at the time. The producer Charles Schneer had faith in the project, which was to be Harryhausen's first feature film in colour, and it was ultimately hailed as one of the best fantasy films since King Kong. It was one of the top moneymakers of 1958, and made another $6m when reissued in 1968. For his celebrated fight with the skeleton, Mathews practised with the Olympic fencing master Enzo Musomeci-Greco, who choreographed the movements. Mathews would then film the movements on his own and Harryhausen would add the skeleton to the sequence later.Mathews next played a conscientious Marine in The Last Blitzkreig (1959). Then he was an FBI agent in Man on a String (1960), based on the memoirs of the Hollywood producer Boris Morros, who led a secret life as a counter-spy. Mathews never found a modern role, though, that would establish him as a film actor rather than action hero. 'I always wanted to make one movie with a good acting role for me,' he said, 'but I never did.'
He returned to fantasy with another collaboration with Harryhausen and Herrmann, The Three Worlds of Gulliver (1960), a pleasing diversion, though it diluted some of Swift's satire by concentrating on the Brobdingnagians and Lilliputians, and adding a romantic partner for Gulliver. Mathews made a less successful combination of adventure and fantasy in Italy titled Saffo, venere di Lesbo (1960), also known as The Warrior Empress - Tina Louise played Sappho, with whom Mathews falls in love.
During this period, the height of his fame, Mathews rarely gave interviews, possibly because he did not want to talk about his private life, for it was a time when action heroes could not admit to being gay. In 1961 he met Tom Nicoll, a British display manager for Harvey Nichols, who was to be his partner for the next 46 years until his death.The same year, Mathews played a missionary in The Devil at 4 O'Clock, a tale of rescue work during a volcanic eruption that proved heavy going, despite a cast headed by Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra. Jack the Giant Killer (1962) had a plot uncomfortably similar to that of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, but the special effects and a lively pace made it fun.
Pirates of Blood River (1962), a British-made Hammer film, was an uninspired account (set entirely on land) of pirates besieging Hugenots, of which the historian Jeffrey Richards commented, 'The majority of the cast seem distressingly like an earnest troupe of amateur actors in the parish hall trying to imitate an Errol Flynn film they have seen at the local Odeon.' Its best sequence was the final sword-fight between the hero, Mathews, and the black-clad pirate captain, flamboyantly played by Christopher Lee, which ends with the villain pinned to a tree.
The modest British-made Maniac (1963) was better, a convoluted thriller, and later the same year Mathews had his favourite role when he played Johann Strauss Jnr in Walt Disney's television production, The Waltz King. For the next few years, Mathews worked mainly in Europe or on television. His last feature film was the horror spoof Nightmare in Blood (1976), in which a horror star attending a convention turns out to be a real vampire.In 1978 he retired from acting and moved to San Francisco, where he became an antique dealer. In latter years he enjoyed answering fan mail, which arrived consistently, and he attended film conventions. 'I have absolutely no regrets about my acting career,' he said. 'On balance, I think it was certainly worthwhile for me to have temporarily left the real world and become an actor.'
He died in San Francisco on July 5, 2007 at the age of 81.
Kerwin Mathews' obituary in The Independent