{"id":891480,"date":"2026-10-23T02:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T02:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/891480\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T02:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T02:48:10","slug":"michael-gray-dead-shazam-star-was-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/891480\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Gray Dead: \u2018Shazam!\u2019 Star Was 75"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMichael 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<\/a>, died Friday in Palm Desert of natural causes, a family spokesperson announced.<\/p>\n

\n\tGray 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tGray\u2019s Billy had but to utter one word \u2014 \u201cshazam\u201d \u2014 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). Watch the opening of the show here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI remember when we were experimenting with the change from Billy to Captain Marvel, using a sort of flash device, and poof \u2014 the smoke would clear and I was a little singed,\u201d Gray recalled in an interview with Comic Book Resources. \u201cThey changed that real quick. That definitely didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGray then had a cameo in Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), where he interacted with Zachary Levi\u2019s Captain Marvel in a nod to the original series.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMichael Gray with John Davey in a promotional photo for \u2018Shazam!\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe 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\u2019s boyfriend on a 1973 installment (when she\u2019s working in the local ice cream shop).<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also appeared in 1970 with Burt Reynolds<\/a> in the ABC telefilm Run, Simon, Run and in the features Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Myra Breckinridge.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Gray\u2019s manager, Tiger Beat publisher Charles Laufer, was keeping him in the spotlight until Shazam! came along.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t know the character or the story when I was initially cast, so I had to be a quick study \u2014 so it was fun and exhausting, challenging and thrilling, all at once,\u201d Gray once said during a Comic-Con panel. \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter that it was on Saturday morning or primetime \u2014 though the fact that it was one of the first few live-action shows on Saturday morning was exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeing a teen idol got to Gray after a while, he noted. \u201cThey wanted me to be the next David Cassidy<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019t leave my house. It got pretty ugly sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEventually, Gray felt he was getting typecast and quit acting. He took a gig in children\u2019s theater education, worked in men\u2019s fashion and owned and operated a West Hollywood floral business with his wife, Stacy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe release of Shazam! on DVD in 2012 opened the door for him to appear at fan conventions.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t 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,\u201d Gray told Derek McCaw of Fanboy Planet back then. \u201cI run into people 10 times a week who ask me, \u2018When is Shazam! going to come out on DVD?\u2019 \u2018Have they ever put it back on TV?\u2019 I didn\u2019t 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\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were such good moral values to the show, and I meet people [everyday] who say, \u2018You have no idea what you did for me as a child \u2026 You helped me get through life \u2026 You made me the better man, or woman, that I am today.\u2019 And that\u2019s a nice feeling. I didn\u2019t know the show had that much strength and power back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent years, Gray enjoyed a career resurgence; he voiced \u201cTV\u2019s Michael Gray,\u201d one of Sterling Archer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to his wife, whom he married in 1994, survivors include his stepchildren, Ryan and Cooper, and his son-in-law, Lee.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMike was just a loving, sweet guy with a great sense of humor,\u201d Davey said in a statement. \u201cHe 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 \u2014 I don\u2019t think he ever stopped smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Gray, who starred on the 1970s Saturday morning kids show Shazam! as Billy Batson, the teenager who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[118783,88,10756],"class_list":["post-891480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-captain-marvel","tag-entertainment","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}