RIP Fankie Coghlan, Jr.

Frank Coghlan, Jr, the young man who played Billy Batson in the "Adventures of Captain Marvel" serial passed away peacefully in his sleep on Monday, September 7, at age 93.

Time is taking away all the people who were there at the beginning of the Captain Marvel saga, and this is the latest.

Frank played boys and teenagers in Hollywood from 1920 (Daredevil Jack) to 1946 (One More Tomorrow). He had the size, look, and voice that made it easy to believe that he was younger than his years, but as Billy Batson, he could handle himself in good boy-hero fashion.

He was in hundreds of movies and serials, but his work as Billy Batson is what he remains known by. The Los Angels Times obit identifies him as such and even includes a poster for the serial Read it here. He even had a small part written for him in the Shazam! TV series when an episode was shot in the San Diego Zoo, which he was working for at the time.

His autobiography was published in 1993 under the title "They 'Still Call Me Junior." I have yet to read it. There is a lovely little interview with him in PC Hamerlinck's Fawcett Companion.

Here is what I wrote about him in my chapter about the serial:

"Frank Coghlan Jr. Was called by Cecil B. De Mille “The Perfect Homeless Waif “ (The Fawcett Companion P.C. Hammerlinck, pg 123). He spent the first two and a half decades of his Hollywood career playing young boys. For the first half of this period he was credited as "Junior Coghlan," and for the second half of it he was frequently in uncredited roles. Some of these roles were in very popular movies, like Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Gone with the Wind (1939), Knute Rockne All American (1940), The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942), and This Is the Army (1943). His film career slowed after 1946, and he was working as the Director of Public Relations for the Los Angeles Zoo when the producers of the Shazam! TV series on CBS were looking to film an episode there. When he told them he had played Billy Batson in the serial, they wrote a part in the TV show for him."

You can see more about Motion picture serials and The Adventures of Captain Marvel in my Captain MArvel Culture preview pages.

By all accounts he was a very nice guy, and he will be missed.

Funny Papers and Moving Pictures

Meanwhile, Jeff Smith, award winning creator of the Bone comic book series, has created a new Shazam story, again rebooting the original Captain Marvel franchise, in a mini-series using the title of the old Fawcett serial, “Monster Society of Evil.” Though he made his own adjustments to the canon, for instance making Mary Batson a much younger sister, and Mary Marvel the same apparent age as Mary Batson, and making Tawky Tawny a magical changeling whom Billy knew as a homeless man, and making Mr. Mind a monstrous alien, rather than a brilliant evil little worm, his version did prove that DC is willing to give Captain Marvel a chance at something with a look and feel that is more light-hearted, youth-oriented, and with a more “cartoony” drawing style. This willingness has been extended to a new book by Mike Kunkel, Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! In DC Comics' Johnny DC youth-oriented line.

There has also been, for the past few years, a Shazam! movie on the slow track for production at New Line Pictures with Michel Uslan producing. The script has gone through several writers, including William Goldman and Joel Coen & Alex Soklow. Currently John August is writing the script, with Peter Segal signed to direct. Movies based on comic book characters have boomed lately. The quality and popularity of comic book-inspired motion pictures has been notoriously hit-and-miss since the Superman movie of 1978, but several low-budget movies based on independent characters in the early 1990's proved that when done with respect for the source material, a movie based on a comic book can be good and find its audience. Since then, the recipe for success has been to listen to the fans and find a producer-writer-director team that will serve the material well, rather than simply treat the material as a property to exploit. New Line has been working with PC Hamerlinck, publisher of Fawcett Collectors of America.

In a recent example of serving the audience, MTV Blogs appears to have influenced the casting of at least one character. Rumors had arisen years ago that Dwayne Johnson, the pro wrestler known as The Rock, would play the Big Red Cheese. Fan response was largely negative, some because they doubted his acting ability, some simply because Captain Marvel was never portrayed as half black-half Samoan. Some (including Yours Truly) suggested that he might be better as Black Adam. In late 2007, MTV Blogs held a survey asking whether Johnson should play Captain Marvel or Black Adm. The result was an overwhelming response in favor of Black Adam. So Johnson went public saying he would listen to the fans and would be glad to talk with New Line about playing Black Adam.

Next: Marvel...The Return