Michael Gray, who starred as Billy Batson on the live-action TV show ‘Shazam!’, passed away from natural causes on Oct. 16 at age 75.
Throughout his career, Michael Gray frequently appeared on the cover page of Tiger Beat and other magazines aimed at teenagers. In 1972, Gray received his first TV break by playing in the NBC show “The Little People” opposite Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares.
Gray also appeared in Dynasty, Marcus Welby, M.D., Room 222, and The Flying Nun, as well as an episode of The Brady Bunch where he played Marcia’s boyfriend. Gray also appeared in the TV movie ‘Run, Simon, Run,’ where he played Burt Reynolds’ brother, and in the movies Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Myra Breckinridge, released in 1970.
However, the most famous role Michael Gray played in his career was undoubtedly Billy Batson in the Saturday morning series ‘Shazam!’.
“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,” Michael Gray said during a Comic-Con panel. “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.”
Born on Sept. 2, 1951, in Chicago, Michael Gray grew up in Miami Beach, Florida, but he moved to Hollywood where he started his acting career. Michael Gray studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and soon began appearing on TV. The manager of Michael Gray, Charles Laufer – publisher of Tiger Beat magazine, kept Michael in the national spotlight that resulted in several other TV roles, most famous of all was the role of Billy Batson in ‘Shazam!’ which Gray played for three years.
Not everything went well in ‘Shazam!’; filming was difficult, with long days of shooting in uncomfortable locations, and developing visual effects was still a challenge for producers of superhero TV shows at the time.
“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 told Comic Book Resources. “They changed that real quick. That definitely didn’t work.”
Michael Gray said being a teen idol wasn’t always easy.
“The teen idol angle was orchestrated to some degree,” Gray 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.”
At some point, Gray felt typecast in nearly every role he got, which led to a hiatus in his acting career. However, during those years, Gray tried many other things: he worked in children’s theater education and men’s fashion, and he also owned a successful floral business in West Hollywood, California, with his wife Stacy.
Later, when Warner Bros. remastered the series ‘Shazam!’ for DVD release in 2012 and later for Blu-ray, Michael Gray started attending fan conventions and taking on new acting roles.
“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,” Michael Gray said to Derek McCaw of Fanboy Planet at the time of the DVD release of ‘Shazam!’. “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 (every day) 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, Michael Gray enjoyed a career revival; he participated in acting and conventions. One episode of the animated series ‘Archer’, produced by FX Network, featured Michael Gray, who was one of the boyhood idols of Sterling Archer, the series’ main character, and was billed as “TV’s Michael Gray”. Gray appeared in the ongoing independent superhero film franchise ‘Surge of Power’ and in the TV show ‘Comic Book Men’ on AMC. He also made a cameo appearance in ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods,’ where he shared a scene with Zachary Levi, the actor playing Captain Marvel in this movie.
Colleagues, including Michael Gray’s co-star in ‘Shazam!,’ John Davey, remembered Gray as a professional, positive person who loved life.
“From my very first day on ‘Shazam!’, Mike and Les (Tremayne) welcomed me like a king,” John Davey said. “Mike was just a loving, sweet guy with a great sense of humor. 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.”
Michael Gray is survived by his wife, Stacy Benon Gray, whom he married in 1994, his stepchildren, Ryan Cooper and Laurel Cooper, and his son-in-law, Lee Barker.
