Jack Matlack, Madcap Publicist

PORTLAND - Jack Matlack, 76, a zany advertising and public relations executive known for stunts including a water-skiing elephant, has died of leukemia.

Matlack's imagination and flair made him an institution on Portland's advertising scene. He wrote in his own obituary, which his family found the day he died, that he was ``the last of the show-business types.''

He cooked up movie promotions as general manager of J.J. Parker Theaters, one of the largest independently owned moviehouse chains in the Northwest in the 1940s and '50s.

He used stagecoaches and cowboys to advertise westerns and brought many stars to Portland for gala premieres, including James Stewart and Rock Hudson for the 1952 opening of ``Bend in the River.'' In 1944, he got Jane Powell to return to the Broadway Theater, where she once had been an usherette, for a downtown parade and the premiere of ``Song of the Open Road.''

Matlack promoted the world premieres of ``Around the World in 80 Days'' at Madison Square Garden in New York and ``Sleeping Beauty'' in San Francisco.

He won the Quigley War Showmanship award three years in a row, and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios named Matlack one of the three top showmen in the country in 1946.

Born Feb. 22, 1914, in Manton, Calif., Matlack attended Chico State Teachers College, now the University of Northern California. He is survived by his wife, Eloise, two daughtersand six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday in the First United Methodist Church. Private burial will be in Finley's Sunset Hills Cemetery.