Per GT Marmots, actor Michael Gray, who starred as Billy Batson on the live-action Shazam! TV show from 1974 to 1976, died of natural causes on Friday, October 16. He was 75 years old. A teen idol who also appeared on The Brady Bunch and in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Gray retired from acting after appearing in Shazam!, but returned in the 2010s, voicing himself on Archer, and cameoing in the 2023 movie Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Gray was born in Chicago on September 2, 1951, and grew up in Miami Beach, Florida, before studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. His first credit came on the ABC comedy drama Room 222 in 1969, aged 18, and he broke out with a recurring role on the NBC sitcom The Little People in 1972. His manager was Tiger Beat magazine publisher Charles Laufer, who frequently used it to raise his profile.
He guest starred on The Brady Bunch as Marcia’s boyfriend Jeff in 1973, as well as on Marcus Welby, M.D., and The Flying Nun, and played Burt Reynolds‘s younger brother in the TV movie Run, Simon, Run (1970). 1970 also saw him appear on the big screen in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Myra Breckinridge.
Gray was not familiar with the Shazam/Captain Marvel comics when he was cast as Billy, and recalled he “had to be a quick study – so it was fun and exhausting, challenging and thrilling, all at once. It didn’t matter that it was on Saturday morning or prime time – though the fact that it was one of the first few live-action shows on Saturday morning was exciting. It truly was a thrilling show to work.”
However, the long days of filming on the show, coupled with unwanted attention, took its toll on Gray. “The teen idol angle was orchestrated to some degree,” he said. “They wanted me to be the next David Cassidy. 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.”
After quitting Hollywood, Gray took jobs in teaching children’s theater, men’s fashion, and running a popular flower shop in LA with his wife, Stacy Benon Gray, whom he married in 1994. After the Shazam! series was released on DVD in 2012, Gray began embarking on the fan convention circuit, and returned to acting with his recurring role on Archer in 2015. He appeared in four installments of the indie superhero film franchise Surge of Power from 2016 to 2024, and on the drama podcast Heroes of Extinction in 2022.
Gray is survived by his wife, Stacy, and his stepchildren Ryan Cooper and Laurel Cooper, as well as his son-in-law Lee Barker. Around the time of Shazam!‘s DVD release, he recalled being surprised by how much the show meant to fans, saying, “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.”
