Jack Mathis, an Illinois advertising executive and author who was the foremost authority on Republic Pictures, the Hollywood studio best known for its B westerns and cliffhanger serials, has died. He was 73.
Mathis died Oct. 13 of natural causes at his home in South Barrington, Ill., said his family.
Jack Mathis Advertising, which Mathis founded in Chicago in 1956, specialized in industrial advertising. The agency later designed the logo for the Chicago Bulls, for whom Mathis spent two seasons assisting Coach John "Red" Kerr in the late 1960s.
Mathis had played basketball as an advertising major at Florida State University in the 1950s, and beginning in the 1957-58 season, he organized, played with and coached the Jamaco Saints in Chicago, one of the nation's leading amateur basketball teams. He also directed the 1959 Pan American Games, which were held in Chicago, and was named to the 1968 U.S. Olympic Basketball Committee.
By then, he was pursuing his other passion: the Republic serials and westerns he had watched at a local movie house every Saturday afternoon as a boy growing up in La Porte, Ind., in the 1930s and '40s.
Reacquainted with the studio's old cliffhangers via 16-millimeter prints for home viewing, Mathis originally planned to write and publish brochures about the Republic serials, owned by National Telefilm Associates.
But after gaining access to the Republic film library and studio files and interviewing actors, directors and others connected with the defunct studio, he found the brochure had grown into a 456-page book that weighed nearly 10 pounds.
"Valley of the Cliffhangers," a complete history of Republic's 66 serials, came out in 1975.
As with all of Mathis' Republic Pictures-related books that followed, he published "Valley of the Cliffhangers" himself. But this was no ordinary self-published effort. It was a leather-bound, oversized, artfully designed, lavishly illustrated anthology on high-gloss paper.
"Everybody couldn't wait to get a copy," said Boyd Magers, editor and publisher of Western Clippings, a western film publication. "It was just the ultimate treatise on Republic serials; nothing could ever top it."
Magers recalled being amazed at the then-hefty $66 price for "Valley of the Cliffhangers." In recent years, he has seen ads for copies of the out-of-print book selling for $1,500. One copy sold at auction for $3,500.
