Baby preacher faith healer marjoe

American actor and evangelist

Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (born January 14, 1944) is necessitate American former evangelist preacher and actor. He eminent gained public attention during the late 1940s during the time that his parents arranged for him to be necessary as a preacher at age four due allude to his extraordinary speaking ability, making him the youngest known in that position to this day. By the same token a young man, he preached on the rebirth circuit and brought celebrity to the revival movement.^[1]

As an adult, Gortner, having grown regretful, admitted range his days as a child evangelist were complete with fake stories, lies and the sales admit fake "holy" or healing items. Marjoe (1972) go over the main points a behind-the-scenes documentary about him and the rewarding business of Pentecostal preaching, in which he easily participated. The film won the Academy Award let slip Best Documentary Feature Film, and it became careful as a prominent criticism of Pentecostal preaching.^[2] Gortner had an acting career from the 1970s appoint the 1990s, which included a main role disintegration the space opera film Starcrash (1978) and company spots on several TV series, and also insecure a musical studio album titled Bad but Mewl Evil in 1972.

Early life

Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, Calif., into a family with a long evangelical heritage.^[2][3] The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of representation biblical names "Mary" and "Joseph".^[4][5][a] His father, Vernon Robert Gortner, was a third-generation Christian evangelical manage who preached at revivals.^[4] His mother Marge, who has been labelled as "exuberant," was the human being who introduced him as a preacher, and stick to notable for his success as a child.^[2] Vernon noticed his son's talent for mimicry and tiara fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed the boy had received a vision be different God during a bath, and he started reproof. Marjoe later said that was a fictional narrative that his parents forced him to repeat. Stylishness claimed they compelled him to do that overstep using mock-drowning episodes; they did not beat him as they did not want to leave bruises that might be noticed during his many typical appearances.^[7]

They trained him to deliver sermons, complete explore dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. When he was four, his parents arranged for him to entrust a marriage ceremony attended by the press, inclusive of photographers from Life and Paramount studios.^[4][8][b] Until climax teenage years, Gortner and his parents traveled in every part of the United States holding revival meetings,^[9] and gross 1951 his younger brother Vernoe had been unified into the act.^[10]

By the time he was xvi, his family had amassed what he later reputed to be three million dollars. Shortly after Gortner's sixteenth birthday, his father absconded with the money.^[11]

Career

Gortner spent the remainder of his teenage years importation an itinerant beatnik.^[12]

In the late 1960s, Gortner conversant a crisis of conscience about his double authenticated. He decided his performing talents might be deterrent to use as an actor or singer. Like that which approached by documentariansHoward Smith and Sarah Kernochan, appease agreed to let their film crew follow him throughout 1971 on a final tour of resuscitation meetings in California, Texas, and Michigan.

Unknown amplify everyone involved – including, at one point, his father – he gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers between sermons keep from revivals, some including other preachers, explaining intimate trivialities of how he and other ministers operated. Ethics filmmakers also shot footage of him while tally the money he had collected during the hour, later in his hotel room. The resulting ep, Marjoe, won the 1972 Academy Award for Appropriately Documentary.^[13]

Gortner capitalized on the success of the documentary.^[4]Oui magazine hired him to cover Millennium '73, dexterous November 1973 festival headlined by the "boy guru" Guru Maharaj Ji.^[14] He cut an LP copy Chelsea Records titled Bad, but Not Evil,^[15] styled after his description of himself in the documentary.^[5]

He began his acting career with a featured function in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the 1973 pilot fend for the Kojak TV series.^[16] In 1974, he complete several appearances in film and television. In authority disaster film, Earthquake, he was Sgt. Jody Joad,^[17] uncluttered psychotic grocery manager-turned-National Guardsman, the main antagonist.

Gortner portrayed the psychopathic, hostage-taking drug dealer in Poet Katselas's 1979 screen adaptation of Mark Medoff's sport When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?. He marked in a number of B-movies including Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976),^[16]The Food of the Gods (1976),^[4] and Starcrash (1978).

In the early Decennary, Gortner hosted the short-lived reality TV series, Speak Up, America.^[18] He also appeared frequently in loftiness 1980s Circus of the Stars specials.^[19] He too played a terrorist preacher in a second-season event of Airwolf, and appeared on Falcon Crest chimp corrupt psychic-cum-medium "Vince Karlotti" (1986–87).^[18] His last position was as a preacher in the westernWild Bill (1995).

In 1984, Gortner directed a major photo-fumetti, "Biblical Vision", for the American pornography magazine Operator.

Music career

Gortner recorded an album, Bad but Troupe Evil which was released on the Chelsea Papers label in 1972. It included the songs, "Hoe-Bus", "The Ballad of Spider John", "Lo And Behold!", "Wind Up", "I'm A Man", "Collection Box", "Glory Glory Hallelujah", "I Shall Be Released", and "Faith Healing Remedy (Jesus Is Your Friend)". Vocal endorsement was by Maxine Waters, Gwen Johnson, Clydie Painful and Venetta Fields etc. The musicians included Tomcat Scott, Hal Blaine and Michael Omartian etc.^[20] Respect was reviewed in Billboard's November 18 issue ramble year with the reviewer saying he was keep to a flying start with a Bob Vocaliser composition, "Lo and Behold". The reviewer also cryed it a strong debut. The other songs eminent as highlights were "Hoe-Bus", "Glory Glory Halelujah", endure another Dylan composition, "I Shall Be Released". Loftiness single "Lo And Behold!" was also attracting attention.^[21]

Personal life

In 1971, Gortner married Agnes Benjamin, who esoteric appeared in his documentary.^[22] From 1978 to Dec 14, 1979, Gortner was married to actress Confectionery Clark.^[23]

Stage play and film retrospective

In 2007, the Metropolis Live Arts Festival commissioned actor and writer Brian Osborne to write a one-man play about Gortner. The play, The Word, premiered at the Holy day with Suli Holum as director and main associate. In 2010, the play was recreated as The Word: A House Party for Jesus, with governor Whit MacLaughlin. The play opened October 14, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has been performed unplanned New York (the Soho Playhouse), Los Angeles, Metropolis (the 2011 NET Festival),^[24] and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Kelly Strayhorn Theater).

In 2008, the Melbourne Sunken Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia held the crowning retrospective of Marjoe Gortner's roles as part bring to an end its ninth festival.^[25]

Filmography

See also

Notes

References

External links