Shazam! Actor Turning Into Celebrity

Mild-mannered Frank Coghlan, the man who said “Shazam” and turned into Captain Marvel, may be reaching his finest hour.

“There’s a whole cult of people out there who are fascinated by Captain Marvel,” said Coghlan, 74, who started acting at age 3 in silent films under the name Junior Coghlan and later performed as Frank Coghlan Jr.

“I’m getting invited to a lot more things these days. They think I’m a celebrity,” he said.

The accolades are for playing the part of radio reporter Billy Batson in the serialized film “The Adventures of Captain Marvel,” 50 years ago.

He was given the power of “Shazam,” which turned him into good guy Captain Marvel, who was played by the late actor Tom Tyler. (Shazam was formed from the names of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.)

Coghlan is fascinated by his growing popularity but admits he doesn’t know what is behind it.

“Maybe it’s because the Captain Marvel episodes were exciting and clean, “ he said, comparing them to today’s movies. “They use some testy words in today’s films.”

Whatever the reason, “I’ve been getting a lot of fan mail and interview requests these days,” he said during an interview in the living room of his Los Alamitos home.

“Old Junior is still alive in the eyes of the Captain Marvel fans, and I really don’t know why,” he repeated, pointing out that “most of the audience wasn’t even born when this came out.”

There were 12 episodes of Captain Marvel made in late 1940 and early 1941.

A little earlier, Coghlan was cast as a “collapsing” Confederate soldier in “Gone With the Wind,” the film that created a stir when Clark Gable said the words, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

But before Gable uttered the “damn” expletive, an earlier scene had Coghlan saying “Put me down, put me down, damn ya’, I can walk,” as he was being carried off the battlefield.

The first showing in 1939 of “Gone With the Wind” contained Coghlan’s line, but it didn’t get any notoriety.

“It was the first time the word damn had ever been used in a movie,” he said. “I used the word before Gable did, but his created a huge flap.”

Coghlan said the film ran that way for a few years “until the film studio wanted to beef it up with a new sound track and the line was cut out on orders of the producer, David O. Selznick.”

Selznick eventually was fined $5,000 for allowing the word to be said, Coghlan recalled.

By that time, Coghlan was a veteran actor, starring with such other film notables as Shirley Temple in “The Frolics of Youth” high school comedy series and Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy films.

He also played the leader of the rival gang in films with the Dead End Kids and was making $400 a week. “That was a lot of money in those days,” he said.

In silent movies, he was featured in some of the original “Our Gang” comedies.

“I’ve been gainfully employed since the age of 3,” he said.

That includes 23 years in silent films and talkies, as well as a 23-year career in the Naval Air Force that started just after the outbreak of World War II. It wasn’t as easy to get adult roles and Coghlan had always wanted to fly, so the patriotic actor changed careers in mid-stream.

In his final five years of military duty, Lt. Cmdr. Coghlan was assigned as officer in charge of the Navy’s Hollywood station and worked as liaison officer for military movies and television shows.

He worked on such films as “P.T. 109,” the John F. Kennedy story, and “In Harm’s Way” with the late John Wayne.

After retiring in 1965, he returned to acting and appeared in about 125 motion pictures, television programs and television commercials.