Former 'ALF' Child Actor Benji Gregory Died in His Car at the Age of 46

Fans of ALF who remember Benji Gregory's performance as Brian Tanner on the show were shocked to learn that Benji had died at just 46 years old. Benji was no longer working as an actor at the time of his death, and TMZ was the first to report on his death.

While Benji was no longer a prominent actor the way he once had been, there were still plenty of people confused about what he had been up to in recent years. More specifically, some wanted to learn what Benji's cause of death had been. Here's what we know.

According to TMZ, Benji was found dead in his car in the parking lot of a Chase Bank located in Peoria, Ariz. on June 13, 2024. The outlet reported that it's believed Benji had been visiting the bank that day to deposit checks and then fell asleep in his car. As a result, the assumption is that Benji died from vehicular heat stroke. The temperature rose to 109 degrees on June 12 in the part of Arizona he was in.

Benji's service dog Hans was also found dead in the car. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office told ABC7 Los Angeles that Benji's official cause of death is still pending.

Rebecca Hertzberg-Pfaffinger, who was Benji's older sister, said that Benji has faced depression, bipolar disorder and a sleep disorder that sometimes kept him awake for days at a time.

Benji was best known for playing Benji Tanner, a human child on the sitcom ALF, which ran for 101 episodes between 1986 and 1990. The show followed its titular character, an alien life form who crashes on Earth and starts living with a normal American family. Puppeteer Paul Fusco was responsible for co-creating the show, and also gave life to the puppet who was the show's main character.

After ALF concluded, Benji's other acting credits were relatively minimal, although he did appear in a number of other TV shows and films before ALF and while the show was on the air.

After he concluded his career as a child star, Benji served in the U.S. Navy following his graduation from school, and he received an honorable medical discharge from the Navy in 2005. It's unclear whether that medical discharge had anything to do with the conditions his sister described.

After his discharge, Benji got married in 2006, and then largely fell off the radar until his death. ALF, as a TV show, is not remembered as a classic of the genre, but in 2018, Warner Bros. announced that it would be rebooting the series. Those plans were eventually scrapped, though, after they failed to find a home for the show.

For those who watched the show while it aired, Benji's death at such a young age feels like a tragedy. His legacy will always be inextricably tied to his work on that show.