“ALF” Star Benji Gregory’s Tragic Passing Revealed: Cirrhosis and Heatstroke

The cause of death for “ALF” actor Ben­ji Gre­go­ry has been revealed. Accord­ing to records from the med­ical exam­in­er’s office in Mari­co­pa Coun­ty, Ari­zona, the for­mer child star died of “envi­ron­men­tal heat expo­sure in the set­ting of hepat­ic cir­rho­sis,” and his man­ner of death was ruled an accident.

Hepatic Cirrhosis and Heatstroke

Hepat­ic cir­rho­sis, also known as cir­rho­sis of the liv­er, is a per­ma­nent scar­ring that dam­ages the liv­er and inter­feres with its func­tion­ing. This can lead to liv­er fail­ure, and is the result of per­sis­tent liv­er dam­age over many years.

Tragic Circumstances

Gre­go­ry was found in his car in the park­ing lot of a Chase Bank in Peo­ria, Ari­zona, on June 13, 2024, at the age of 46. 

His sis­ter, Rebec­ca Hertzberg-Pfaffin­ger, con­firmed his death in a Face­book post, stat­ing that he had gone to the bank to deposit some resid­u­als and had fall­en asleep in the car, where he trag­i­cal­ly died from vehic­u­lar heatstroke.

Tem­per­a­tures in Peo­ria had report­ed­ly reached a high of 107 degrees Fahren­heit on the day of Gre­go­ry’s death, which con­tributed to the trag­ic circumstances.

Legacy and Acting Career

Gre­go­ry played the role of young Bri­an Tan­ner on the hit 1980s sit­com “ALF” for all four sea­sons of the show’s run from 1986 to 1990.

He was just 8 years old when the series pre­miered. In addi­tion to “ALF,” Gre­go­ry appeared in sev­er­al oth­er pop­u­lar 1980s TV shows, includ­ing “The A‑Team,” “Fan­tas­tic Max,” “Punky Brew­ster,” “TJ Hook­er,” and “The Twi­light Zone.” 

He also act­ed in movies, most notably the Whoopi Gold­berg com­e­dy “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and the Dis­ney TV movie “Mr. Boogedy.”

Gre­go­ry’s last act­ing cred­it was as the voice of the char­ac­ter Edgar in the 1993 ani­mat­ed movie “Once Upon a Forest.”

He lat­er enlist­ed in the U.S. Navy, becom­ing an aero­g­ra­pher’s mate, and was hon­or­ably dis­charged in 2005.