Benji Gregory, Child Star on ‘ALF,’ Dies at 46 (original) (raw)

Television|Benji Gregory, Child Star Best Known for ‘ALF,’ Dies at 46

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/10/arts/television/benji-gregory-alf-dead.html

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Benji Gregory, Child Star Best Known for ‘ALF,’ Dies at 46

The hit sitcom, whose main character was an alien, was seen from 1986 to 1990 but would endure in memory as a characteristic artifact of 1980s pop culture.

Benji Gregory, a young boy wearing a cap, sits in front of a couch with the puppet known as ALF. Their arms are wrapped around each other.

Benji Gregory with his puppet co-star on the hit NBC sitcom “ALF.” (The letters stood for “alien life form.”) Credit...Alamy

July 10, 2024

Benji Gregory, who starred as a child in the hit television series “ALF” from 1986 to 1990, has died. He was 46.

His death was confirmed by his sister, Rebecca Pfaffinger, who said in an interview that Mr. Gregory and his service dog were found dead in his car on June 13 at a bank’s parking lot in Peoria, Ariz., and that the family did not announce the death sooner to take time to mourn. In a Facebook post, she added that he had fallen asleep in the vehicle and had died of heatstroke.

Mr. Gregory was known mainly for his role as Brian Tanner on “ALF,” an NBC sitcom about a suburban family that adopts a snout-nosed, Chewbacca-like “alien life form” (the basis of the character’s nickname) with the personality of a PG-rated insult comic. Brian is something like ALF’s younger sibling and best friend.

The show technically left the air in 1990, but it would endure in memory as a characteristic artifact of 1980s pop culture.

When RadioShack attempted to relaunch its brand in 2014, it aired a Super Bowl commercial in which a store employee answers the phone; announces, “The ’80s called; they want their store back”; and then watches helplessly as Cliff from “Cheers,” Chucky, Hulk Hogan and ALF loot the shelves. In an ’80s-themed Delta in-flight safety video the same year, a sunglasses-wearing passenger applies an oxygen mask to himself first before fitting one around ALF’s snout.

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