Kerwin Mathews, 81, star of '50s science fiction films

HOLLYWOOD -- 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.

Mr. Mathews, who was best known for his fantasy and horror films, died July 5 in his sleep at his San Francisco home.

Mr. Mathews, tall and dark-haired, 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 the 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,"

Science fiction and fantasy film specialist Tom Weaver said: "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.

If Mr. 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."

In a 1987 interview with Starlog magazine, Mr. Mathews said that filming the famous sword fight with the skeleton in "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," a 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.

An only child, Mr. Mathews was born in Seattle on Jan. 8, 1926. Shortly thereafter, he and his divorced mother moved to Janesville, Wis.

After two years in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, he attended Beloit (Wis.) College on drama and music scholarships.

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."

Mr. Mathews, who moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, spent his post-acting career selling antiques and furniture.