Michael Gray, who starred on the 1970s Saturday morning kids show Shazam! as Billy Batson, the teenager who in a puff of smoke turns into the superhero Captain Marvel, died Friday in Palm Desert of natural causes, a family spokesperson announced.
Gray frequently graced the covers of Tiger Beat and other popular teen magazines as he landed his first series gig as a student doctor named Ronnie Collins on the first season of the 1972-74 NBC sitcom The Little People, starring Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares.
Gray’s Batson had but to yell one word — “shazam” — to be transformed into Captain Marvel (played by Jackson Bostwick and then John Davey) on the live-action CBS show that aired for three seasons (1974-76).
“I remember when we were experimenting with the change from Billy to Captain Marvel, using a sort of flash device, and poof — the smoke would clear and I was a little singed,” Gray recalled in an interview with Comic Book Resources. “They changed that real quick. That definitely didn’t work.”
Gray then had a cameo in Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), where he interacted with Zachary Levi’s Captain Marvel in a nod to the original series.
Born in Chicago on Sept. 2, 1951, Gray was raised in Miami Beach before he headed to Hollywood, where he studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.
He made his onscreen debut on a 1969 episode of Room 222, then showed up on The Flying Nun, Marcus Welby, M.D. and The Brady Bunch, where he played Marcia’s boyfriend on a 1973 installment (when she’s working in the local ice cream shop).
He also appeared in 1970 with Burt Reynolds in the ABC telefilm Run, Simon, Run and in the features Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Myra Breckinridge.
Meanwhile, Gray’s manager, Tiger Beat publisher Charles Laufer, was keeping him in the spotlight until Shazam! came along.
“I didn’t know the character or the story when I was initially cast, so I had to be a quick study — so it was fun and exhausting, challenging and thrilling, all at once,” Gray once said during a Comic-Con panel. “It didn’t matter that it was on Saturday morning or primetime — though the fact that it was one of the first few live-action shows on Saturday morning was exciting.”
Being a teen idol got to Gray after a while, he noted. “They wanted me to be the next David Cassidy,” he said. “I was on the front cover of Tiger Beat often, and it worked. Back then, when the show was running and all the fan magazine coverage was going on, I couldn’t leave my house. It got pretty ugly sometimes.”
Eventually, Gray felt he was getting typecast and quit acting. He took a gig in children’s theater education, worked in men’s fashion and owned and operated a West Hollywood floral business with his wife, Stacy.
The release of Shazam! on DVD in 2012 opened the door for him to appear at fan conventions.
“I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I am. Shazam! is such a major part of my life, and for 30-some-odd-years, it just collected dust,” Gray told Derek McCaw of Fanboy Planet back then. “I run into people 10 times a week who ask me, ‘When is Shazam! going to come out on DVD?’ ‘Have they ever put it back on TV?’ I didn’t know how much I would like Shazam! until years later when I found out how much of an influence my character and the show was on people’s lives.
“There were such good moral values to the show, and I meet people [everyday] who say, ‘You have no idea what you did for me as a child … You helped me get through life … You made me the better man, or woman, that I am today.’ And that’s a nice feeling. I didn’t know the show had that much strength and power back then.”
In recent years, Gray enjoyed a career resurgence; he voiced “TV’s Michael Gray,” one of Sterling Archer’s boyhood idols, on four episodes of the FX comedy Archer from 2015-19 and Will E. Bee in the AMC franchise Surge of Power from 2016-20.
In addition to his wife, whom he married in 1994, survivors include his stepchildren, Ryan and Cooper, and his son-in-law, Lee.
“Mike was just a loving, sweet guy with a great sense of humor,” Davey said in a statement. “He loved acting, loved doing the show and, in recent years, loved appearing at comic-cons. He really enjoyed meeting and chatting with the fans. Mike was a wonderful man — I don’t think he ever stopped smiling.”