Departures of note

Michael Gray was an American actor best remembered as Billy Batson, the teenage hero at the heart of the 1970s CBS live-action series Shazam!, which ran from 1974 to 1976 and introduced the Captain Marvel/Shazam character to Saturday-morning television audiences. Earlier in his career, from 1972 to 1973, he appeared as Ronnie Collins in the first season of the NBC sitcom The Brian Keith Show, starring Brian Keith and Shelley Fabares, and he made a guest appearance as Marcia's boyfriend Jeff in a 1973 episode of The Brady Bunch. Decades later he returned to the role's fan world, voicing a fictionalized version of himself in episodes of the animated series Archer and appearing in a cameo in the 2023 film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, in which his character hails the transformed Billy as Captain Marvel. Away from acting, Gray ran a florist shop in West Hollywood with his wife, Stacy Benon, until the mid-2000s. He died of natural causes on October 16, 2026, at the age of 75.