If he had invested the prize in the S&P500, in order to be able to live from the investment income for 50 years (Michael was aged 33 when he won), he would have been able to withdraw only about $10,040 per year, in 1982 dollars, which is equivalent to $32,500 in today's dollars, which is a minimum wage salary. I don't think this is "reasonably comfortable".

The CAGR of the S&P 500, including dividends reinvested, inflation-adjusted, was about 9% in the 1982-2024 period [1], and my Python script below shows that starting with $110k, with this 9% CAGR, he would run out of money in about 50 years:

   t = 110e3
   for y in range(50):
     t *= 1.09
     t -= 10040
     print(1982 + y, round(t))

Output:

    1982 $109850
    1983 $109687
    1984 $109508
    1985 $109314
    1986 $109102
    1987 $108871
    1988 $108620
    1989 $108346
    1990 $108047
    1991 $107721
    1992 $107366
    1993 $106979
    1994 $106557
    1995 $106097
    1996 $105596
    1997 $105049
    1998 $104454
    1999 $103805
    2000 $103097
    2001 $102326
    2002 $101485
    2003 $100569
    2004 $99570
    2005 $98482
    2006 $97295
    2007 $96001
    2008 $94592
    2009 $93055
    2010 $91380
    2011 $89554
    2012 $87564
    2013 $85394
    2014 $83030
    2015 $80453
    2016 $77643
    2017 $74581
    2018 $71244
    2019 $67606
    2020 $63640
    2021 $59318
    2022 $54606
    2023 $49471
    2024 $43873
    2025 $37772
    2026 $31121
    2027 $23872
    2028 $15971
    2029 $7358
    2030 $-2030 # no more money
    2031 $-12263

(But actually he died early in 1999, so if he had know that he could have spent more yearly...)

[1] https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/