Matthews worked closely with the legendary Paul “Red” Adair and Asger “Boots” Hansen in the oil well firefighting industry. Matthews and Hansen later left Adair and founded the Boots and Coots well control firm.
…Adair, Matthews and Hansen worked some of the industry’s most notorious blowouts, including a fire in Algeria in 1961 known as the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter.” Experts thought the fire, which billowed 450 feet in the air, would take years to extinguish. They did the job in just a few weeks.
Edited to add: John Forsythe. The LAT fails to mention his lead role in “Kitten With a Whip“, which Joe Bob Briggs argues is a vastly under-appreciated film. (If you haven’t read them yet, let me recommend Profoundly Erotic: Sexy Movies that Changed History
