JUST IMAGINE! November 1943: The Movie Star Who Said ‘Shazam!’

Fred MacMurray could fly, even without the hot rod he super-souped up in Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor.
The Hollywood leading man had an odd and hidden history with the beginnings of the superhero genre. He was used as the model for Fawcett’s Captain Marvel on the cover of his initial appearance in the first published issue of Whiz Comics in 1940, when the whole superhero genre spawned by Superman was only a couple of years old.

Alex Ross has winked at that resemblance in his paintings. And there wasn’t much question about it. Artist C.C. Beck said, “Captain Marvel himself was based on the actor Fred MacMurray, who was known as a pretty down-to-earth guy.”
Nevertheless, some people may have remained unconvinced.
Circulation director Roscoe Kent Fawcett remarked, “I know it has been said that Captain Marvel was modeled after actor Fred MacMurray. I had lunch one time with Cary Grant. I was talking to him about featuring him in one of our magazines. He said, ‘Roscoe, you’re already doing that! People have told me I look like Captain Marvel!’ When you think about it, he did look a little like him.”
By 1943, with Captain Marvel and the other superheroes now enormously popular with both kids and U.S. troops overseas, MacMurray effectively appeared AS Captain Marvel in a dream sequence during the romantic comedy film No Time For Love, co-starring Claudette Colbert.
In 1940, Captain Marvel wanted to be Fred MacMurray. Three years later, MacMurray wanted to be Marvel. You can chart the instant, explosive popularity of the superhero genre right there.

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