A Saturday-morning hero and a teen-magazine fixture
A family spokesperson confirmed that Michael Gray passed away from natural causes on Friday in Palm Desert at age 75. Gray was most widely recognized for his portrayal of Billy Batson in Shazam!, the 1970s Saturday-morning kids' show. In that CBS live-action program, which aired three seasons between 1974 and 1976, his young character simply spoke the word shazam to become the hero Captain Marvel, portrayed first by Jackson Bostwick and afterward by John Davey.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S6]
Before that series, Gray had already become familiar to young audiences. He played a student doctor named Ronnie Collins during the first season of The Little People, the NBC sitcom that aired from 1972 to 1974 with Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares. His face appeared repeatedly on the covers of Tiger Beat and other teen magazines, and his manager, Tiger Beat publisher Charles Laufer, worked to keep him visible until Shazam! arrived.[S1]
Born in Chicago on Sept. 2, 1951, Gray grew up in Miami Beach and later moved to Hollywood, where he trained as an actor at the Pasadena Playhouse. His first screen appearance came in a 1969 episode of Room 222, followed by parts on The Flying Nun, Marcus Welby, M.D. and The Brady Bunch, where in a 1973 installment he played Marcia's boyfriend while she worked at a local ice cream shop. He also appeared in 1970 alongside Burt Reynolds in the ABC telefilm Run, Simon, Run and in the features Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Myra Breckinridge.[S1][S5][S7][S8]
Fame, typecasting and a retreat from acting
The attention that came with being a teen idol eventually wore on Gray. He recalled that industry figures wanted him to become another David Cassidy, and that the constant fan-magazine coverage made it difficult to leave his home while the show was running, a situation he described as sometimes turning unpleasant. Feeling increasingly typecast, he eventually gave up acting. He went on to work in children's theater education and in men's fashion, and with his wife, Stacy, he owned and ran a floral business in West Hollywood.[S1]
Gray spoke about the physical comedy of the show's transformation sequence, recalling that early experiments with a flash device left him slightly singed when the smoke cleared, a technique the producers quickly abandoned. He also said that when he was first cast he knew nothing about the character or its story, which forced him to learn fast, and that he found the experience simultaneously enjoyable, tiring, difficult and exciting. He noted that the Saturday-morning slot did not diminish the thrill, especially since the program was among the first live-action shows in that time period.[S1]
A second life on DVD, at conventions and on screen
The 2012 DVD release of Shazam! brought Gray back into public view and opened the door to fan conventions. He said the show had sat unused for roughly three decades and that he was overwhelmed by the response, encountering people weekly who asked when the series would be available on disc or return to television. He came to understand the program's influence only years later, when fans told him the moral values it promoted had helped them through childhood and shaped the adults they became.[S1]
In his later years Gray found new work on screen. He voiced a version of himself, billed as TV's Michael Gray and presented as one of Sterling Archer's childhood idols, across four episodes of the FX comedy Archer between 2015 and 2019, and he played Will E. Bee in the AMC franchise Surge of Power from 2016 to 2020. He also made a cameo in the 2023 film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, sharing scenes with Zachary Levi's Captain Marvel as a nod to the original series.[S1]
Gray married his wife, Stacy, in 1994. He is survived by her, by his stepchildren, Ryan and Cooper, and by his son-in-law, Lee. John Davey, who took over the Captain Marvel role, remembered Gray as a warm and funny man who took pleasure in acting, in making the show and, more recently, in meeting fans at comic conventions, and who seemed never to stop smiling.[S1]
