Actor Frank Coghlan, Jr. died in his sleep on 7 September 2009. Born 15 March 1916 in New Haven, Connecticut, he was often credited as Junior Coghlan (when he was credited at all), and will be remembered for playing Billy Batson, Captain Marvel’s “secret identity”, in the 1941 serial Adventures of Captain Marvel (Tom Tyler, who died in 1954, played Captain Marvel).
Soon after his birth, Coghlan’s parents moved the family to California, where all three of them worked as extras in silent pictures. Film critic/historian Leonard Maltin, quoted in this Los Angeles Times obituary, said Junior “was one of the busiest child actors of the late ’20s and 1930s. He was a fresh, freckle-faced boy with great All-American type appeal.”
He had small parts in films such as The Spanish Dancer (1923) with Pola Negri, and Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923). Cecil B. DeMille signed Coghlan to a five-year contract, and called him “the perfect example of a homeless waif.” He appeared in DeMille’s The Yankee Clipper (1927).
His iconic role was the first time a comic book superhero came alive on the big screen. Coghlan said he “had no idea who Captain Marvel or Billy Batson were” when he was called in to interview for the role. After the interview, he bought a copy of the comic, and “said to myself, ‘Hey, I do kind of look like that kid.” He spoke the classic phrase “Shazam!” to turn into Captain Marvel throughout the entire serial.
After his superhero days, he joined the service and became a naval aviator during World War II. He remained with the Navy for 23 years, retiring as a lieutenant commander. For eight of his years in uniform, he was in charge of the Navy Film Cooperation Program. In the Pentagon from 1952 to 1954, he was the liaison for such classics as The Caine Mutiny, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, and Mr. Roberts. He was in charge of the Navy’s Hollywood office from 1960 to 1965. Following his retirement from the Navy, he worked in public relations for the Los Angeles Zoo and the Port of Los Angeles, but kept his hand in acting in commercials. He also had a small part in an episode of the 1974 series Shazam!.
In 1992, his autobiography, They Still Call Me Junior, was published by McFarland. Coghlan is survived by his second wife, four children, and six grandchildren.