Shazam! star Michael Gray, TV's original Billy Batson, dies at 75

Michael Gray, who played Billy Batson in the 1970s live-action TV series Shazam!, has died at 75. 

Gray died of natural causes on Friday, 16 October, in Palm Desert, California, his publicist announced on Thursday. 

The publicist told TMZ that Gray’s health had failed him.

In Shazam!, Gray’s Billy was a teenager who turned into Captain Marvel by saying the magic word. 

The hero was played by Jackson Bostwick and later John Davey. Gray played Billy for three years and became a teen idol of the era. 

He frequently appeared on the cover of Tiger Beat and other teen magazines, and his manager, Tiger Beat publisher Charles Laufer, kept him in the national spotlight.

Born in Chicago on 2 September 1951, Gray grew up in Miami Beach, Florida, before moving to Hollywood. 

He studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. His first TV break came in 1972 in the NBC series The Little People, opposite Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares. 

He also appeared in Dynasty, Marcus Welby, M.D., Room 222 and The Flying Nun, and played Marcia’s boyfriend Jeff on The Brady Bunch.

Gray eventually felt typecast and left acting. 

During his long break, he worked in children’s theatre education and men’s fashion, and ran a popular West Hollywood floral business with his wife, Stacy.

In recent years he enjoyed a career resurgence. 

He voiced TV’s Michael Gray, one of Sterling Archer’s boyhood idols, across four episodes of FX’s Archer, appeared on Comic Book Men, worked the convention circuit, and made a cameo in 2023’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods. 

Colleagues, including Shazam! co-star John Davey, remembered him as a professional, positive person who loved life.

Gray is survived by Stacy Benon Gray, whom he married in 1994, his stepchildren Ryan Cooper and Laurel Cooper, and his son-in-law Lee Barker.