Frank Coghlan Jr., Child Actor of Silent Era, Dies at 93
Frank Coghlan Jr., a freckle-faced child actor of silent movies who in the sound era thrilled Saturday matinee audiences by shouting “Shazam!” and mutating into the superhero Captain Marvel, died on Sept. 7 at his home in Saugus, Calif. He was 93.
He died of natural causes, his son, Patrick, said.
Junior Coghlan, as he was usually billed, did not actually become Captain Marvel in the 12-part serial “Adventures of Captain Marvel,” which Republic Pictures released in 1941. He played Billy Batson, the boy who meets a shaman in Siam who teaches him to transform himself into the superhero.
It was actually Tom Tyler who emerged as Captain Marvel, after Billy’s “Shazam!” moment, a giant flash and a billow of white smoke. (Although Mr. Coghlan was 25 at the time, his youthful looks and rather high-pitched voice allowed him to play the younger character.) Billy the boy and Captain Marvel, in a tight red costume with a yellow lightning bolt on the chest, would morph back and forth during the episodes, each 15 to 20 minutes long.
“It’s considered by many aficionados as the best cliffhanger serial of all time,” Bruce Goldstein, the director of repertory programming at Film Forum, the movie house in the South Village, said in an interview. “What a great fantasy for kids: a kid who turns into a superhero.”
Junior Coghlan had already made his name in movies when he was really a child. Starting at 3 as a crawl-on in a Western serial called “Daredevil Jack,” he had been an extra, played bit parts or had significant roles in more than two dozen silent movies.
“If you went to the movies in those days, you couldn’t help but know him, even though he was never a major star,” the film critic and historian Leonard Maltin said in an interview...
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He died of natural causes, his son, Patrick, said.
Junior Coghlan, as he was usually billed, did not actually become Captain Marvel in the 12-part serial “Adventures of Captain Marvel,” which Republic Pictures released in 1941. He played Billy Batson, the boy who meets a shaman in Siam who teaches him to transform himself into the superhero.
It was actually Tom Tyler who emerged as Captain Marvel, after Billy’s “Shazam!” moment, a giant flash and a billow of white smoke. (Although Mr. Coghlan was 25 at the time, his youthful looks and rather high-pitched voice allowed him to play the younger character.) Billy the boy and Captain Marvel, in a tight red costume with a yellow lightning bolt on the chest, would morph back and forth during the episodes, each 15 to 20 minutes long.
“It’s considered by many aficionados as the best cliffhanger serial of all time,” Bruce Goldstein, the director of repertory programming at Film Forum, the movie house in the South Village, said in an interview. “What a great fantasy for kids: a kid who turns into a superhero.”
Junior Coghlan had already made his name in movies when he was really a child. Starting at 3 as a crawl-on in a Western serial called “Daredevil Jack,” he had been an extra, played bit parts or had significant roles in more than two dozen silent movies.
“If you went to the movies in those days, you couldn’t help but know him, even though he was never a major star,” the film critic and historian Leonard Maltin said in an interview...