Marjoe Gortner
Encyclopedia
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, generally known as Marjoe Gortner (born January 14, 1944 (age 68) in Long Beach, California
), is a former revivalist who first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s when he became the youngest ordained
preacher
at the age of four. He then gained outright notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in Marjoe
, an Oscar
-winning, behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal
preaching. The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the names "Mary
" and "Joseph
".
him because they could not beat him which would leave bruises which might be noticed during his many public appearances. They began training him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. By the time he was four his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony for a film crew from Paramount
studios, referring to him as "the youngest ordained minister in history." Like much in Gortner's early life it is hard to say for sure who exactly ordained him, if his father ordained him, or if he was even ordained at all.
Until the time he was a teenager Gortner and his parents traveled the United States holding revival meeting
s. As well as teaching him scriptural passages his parents also taught him several money-making tactics involving the sale of supposedly "holy" articles at revivals which promised to heal the sick and dying. By the time he was 16 his family had amassed what he later estimated to be three million dollars. Shortly after Gortner's sixteenth birthday his father absconded with the money and a disillusioned Marjoe Gortner left his mother for San Francisco where he was taken in by, and became the lover of, an older woman. He spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant hippie
until his early twenties when, hard pressed for money, he decided to put his old skills to work and re-emerged on the circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rockers, most notably Mick Jagger
. He made enough to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California, surviving on the previous six months' earnings.
In the late 1960s Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience
about leading his double life
and felt his performing talents might be put to better use as an actor or singer. When approached by documentarians Howard Smith
and Sarah Kernochan
he agreed to let their film crew follow him on a final tour around revival meetings in California, Texas
, and Michigan
during 1971. Unbeknownst to everyone else involved — including, at one point, his father — he gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers in between sermons and revivals explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. After these sermons the filmmakers were invited back to his hotel room to tape him counting the money he had collected during the day. The resulting film, Marjoe
, won the 1972 Academy Award
for best documentary.
After leaving the revival circuit Gortner then attempted to break into both Hollywood and the recording industry. He cut an LP
with Columbia Records
, entitled "Bad, but not Evil" (Gortner's description of himself in the documentary), which met with poor sales and reviews. He began his acting career with a featured role in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the 1973 pilot for the Kojak
TV series. The following year saw him featured in the Academy Award-winning ensemble cast
disaster film
Earthquake as Sgt. Jody Joad, a psychotic grocery manager-turned-National Guardsman and the film's main antagonist, and in the television movie
Pray for the Wildcats
. Oui
magazine hired Gortner to cover Millennium '73
, a November 1973 festival headlined by Guru Maharaj Ji who was sometimes called a "boy guru".
During the late 1970s Gortner attempted to self-finance another similar film, this time a pseudo-fictional drama about an evangelist con-man and based in part on Gortner's real-life experiences. The film started shooting in New Orleans, Louisiana
, but went bankrupt less than 6 weeks into production. Gortner disappeared late one night with several thousand dollars worth of film stock
, most of it unused, and left the crew stranded in Dallas, Texas
where they had been moved for shooting. The film was never completed and the film stock was never recovered.
Gortner was married briefly to Candy Clark
, from 1978 to December 14, 1979.
Gortner's most memorable film performance was as the psychopathic, hostage-taking drug dealer in Milton Katselas
's 1979 screen adaptation of Mark Medoff
's play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, also starring Peter Firth
, Lee Grant
, and Hal Linden
. He also starred in several B-movies such as the television film The Gun and The Pulpit
(1974) {also released on home video
as The Gun and the Cross}, The Food Of The Gods
(1976), Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
, co-starring Lynda Carter
in her only nude appearance, and Starcrash
(1978). He appeared frequently on the 1980s Circus of the Stars
specials.
He hosted an early-1980s reality TV series called Speak Up, America, and appeared on Falcon Crest
as corrupt psychic
-medium "Vince Karlotti" (1986-87) before ending his movie career in 1995 with an appearance in the western Wild Bill, in which he played a preacher.
Up until 2009 he produced Celebrity Sports Invitational charity golf tournaments and ski events to raise money for charities such as the Dream Foundation and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
's Waterkeeper Alliance
.
Marjoe retired from doing any more events in January 2010.
In 2008 The Melbourne Underground Film Festival held the first retrospective of the cinematic works of Marjoe Gortner as part of their 9th festival.
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
), is a former revivalist who first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s when he became the youngest ordained
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
preacher
Preacher
Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...
at the age of four. He then gained outright notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in Marjoe
Marjoe
Marjoe is a 1972 American documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.- Story:...
, an Oscar
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning, behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...
preaching. The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the names "Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
" and "Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
".
Biography
When Gortner was three his father, Vernon, a third generation minister, noticed his son's talent for mimicry and overall fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed he had received a vision from God during a bath, but this was later conceded by Marjoe to be a lie his parents forced him to repeat. He claimed they enforced this by mock-drowningDrowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....
him because they could not beat him which would leave bruises which might be noticed during his many public appearances. They began training him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. By the time he was four his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony for a film crew from Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
studios, referring to him as "the youngest ordained minister in history." Like much in Gortner's early life it is hard to say for sure who exactly ordained him, if his father ordained him, or if he was even ordained at all.
Until the time he was a teenager Gortner and his parents traveled the United States holding revival meeting
Revival meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held in order to inspire active members of a church body, to raise funds and to gain new converts...
s. As well as teaching him scriptural passages his parents also taught him several money-making tactics involving the sale of supposedly "holy" articles at revivals which promised to heal the sick and dying. By the time he was 16 his family had amassed what he later estimated to be three million dollars. Shortly after Gortner's sixteenth birthday his father absconded with the money and a disillusioned Marjoe Gortner left his mother for San Francisco where he was taken in by, and became the lover of, an older woman. He spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
until his early twenties when, hard pressed for money, he decided to put his old skills to work and re-emerged on the circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rockers, most notably Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
. He made enough to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California, surviving on the previous six months' earnings.
In the late 1960s Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience
Crisis of Conscience
Crisis of Conscience is a biographical book by Raymond Franz, a former member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, written in 1983, three years after his expulsion from the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. The book is a major study and exposé of the internal workings of the Watch Tower Bible...
about leading his double life
Double Life
Double Life is a 2-CD compilation album of songs by Värttinä. It includes the entire 6.12 live album, and songs from studio albums Seleniko, Aitara and Ilmatar...
and felt his performing talents might be put to better use as an actor or singer. When approached by documentarians Howard Smith
Howard Smith (director)
Howard Smith is an Oscar winning film director, producer, journalist, screenwriter, actor, and radio broadcaster.-Early career:Howard Smith started his career as a photographer...
and Sarah Kernochan
Sarah Kernochan
Sarah Kernochan is a documentarian, film director, screenwriter and producer from the United States.After graduating in 1965 from Rosemary Hall , where she was a classmate of Glenn Close, and in 1968 from Sarah Lawrence College, she worked as a ghostwriter for The Village Voice for about a year...
he agreed to let their film crew follow him on a final tour around revival meetings in California, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
during 1971. Unbeknownst to everyone else involved — including, at one point, his father — he gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers in between sermons and revivals explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. After these sermons the filmmakers were invited back to his hotel room to tape him counting the money he had collected during the day. The resulting film, Marjoe
Marjoe
Marjoe is a 1972 American documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.- Story:...
, won the 1972 Academy Award
45th Academy Awards
The 45th Academy Awards were presented March 27, 1973 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson....
for best documentary.
After leaving the revival circuit Gortner then attempted to break into both Hollywood and the recording industry. He cut an LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
with Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, entitled "Bad, but not Evil" (Gortner's description of himself in the documentary), which met with poor sales and reviews. He began his acting career with a featured role in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the 1973 pilot for the Kojak
Kojak
Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...
TV series. The following year saw him featured in the Academy Award-winning ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
disaster film
Disaster film
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...
Earthquake as Sgt. Jody Joad, a psychotic grocery manager-turned-National Guardsman and the film's main antagonist, and in the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
Pray for the Wildcats
Pray for the Wildcats
Pray for the Wildcats is a 1974 U.S. television film that originally aired as an ABC Movie of the Week. It is a thriller-drama about a psychopathic business executive chasing his workers on dirtbikes through the desert after he killed a young man. The film was directed by Robert Michael Lewis and...
. Oui
Oui (magazine)
Oui is a men's adult pornographic magazine published in the USA and featuring explicit nude photographs of models, with full page pin-ups, centerfolds, interviews and other articles, and cartoons.- Playboy years :...
magazine hired Gortner to cover Millennium '73
Millennium '73
Millennium '73 was a three-day festival held on November 8–10, 1973 at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, United States, by the Divine Light Mission . It featured Prem Rawat, then known as Guru Maharaj Ji, a 15-year-old guru and the leader of a fast-growing new religious movement...
, a November 1973 festival headlined by Guru Maharaj Ji who was sometimes called a "boy guru".
During the late 1970s Gortner attempted to self-finance another similar film, this time a pseudo-fictional drama about an evangelist con-man and based in part on Gortner's real-life experiences. The film started shooting in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
, but went bankrupt less than 6 weeks into production. Gortner disappeared late one night with several thousand dollars worth of film stock
Film stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
, most of it unused, and left the crew stranded in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
where they had been moved for shooting. The film was never completed and the film stock was never recovered.
Gortner was married briefly to Candy Clark
Candy Clark
Candace June "Candy" Clark is an American film and television actress, well known for her role as Debbie Dunham in the 1973 film American Graffiti, which garnered her an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, a character she reprised in 1979 for the sequel More American Graffiti...
, from 1978 to December 14, 1979.
Gortner's most memorable film performance was as the psychopathic, hostage-taking drug dealer in Milton Katselas
Milton Katselas
Milton Katselas was an American film director and famous Hollywood coach for The Beverly Hills Playhouse...
's 1979 screen adaptation of Mark Medoff
Mark Medoff
Mark Medoff is an American playwright, screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. His play Children of a Lesser God received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award...
's play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, also starring Peter Firth
Peter Firth
Peter Firth is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Sir Harry Pearce in the BBC show Spooks, of which he is the only actor to have starred in every episode of the show's 10 series lifespan...
, Lee Grant
Lee Grant
Lee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...
, and Hal Linden
Hal Linden
Hal Linden is an American stage and television actor and television director, best known for his role in the television comedy series Barney Miller and as presenter on the ABC educational series Animals, Animals, Animals....
. He also starred in several B-movies such as the television film The Gun and The Pulpit
The Gun and the Pulpit
The Gun and the Pulpit is a 1974 American television film directed by Daniel Petrie.- Cast :*Marjoe Gortner as Ernie Parsons*Slim Pickens as Billy One-Eye*David Huddleston as Mr...
(1974) {also released on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
as The Gun and the Cross}, The Food Of The Gods
The Food of the Gods (film)
The Food of the Gods is a 1976 film released by American International Pictures and was written, produced, and directed by Bert I. Gordon....
(1976), Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw is a 1976 film directed by Mark L. Lester. It stars Marjoe Gortner and Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter....
, co-starring Lynda Carter
Lynda Carter
Lynda Jean Carter is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA and as the star of the 1970s television series The New Original Wonder Woman and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman ....
in her only nude appearance, and Starcrash
Starcrash
Starcrash is an Italian 1979 science fiction film, which was also released under the English title of The Adventures of Stella Star . The film is a low budget and is often regarded as a rip-off of Star Wars...
(1978). He appeared frequently on the 1980s Circus of the Stars
Circus of the Stars
Circus of the Stars was an annual television special, broadcast by the CBS network in the United States, in which celebrities performed circus-type acts. There were 19 shows in total, the first being broadcast in 1977 and the last in 1994. Over the years the series featured many leading movie and...
specials.
He hosted an early-1980s reality TV series called Speak Up, America, and appeared on Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest is an American primetime television soap opera which aired on the CBS network for nine seasons, from December 4, 1981 to May 17, 1990. A total of 227 episodes were produced....
as corrupt psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
-medium "Vince Karlotti" (1986-87) before ending his movie career in 1995 with an appearance in the western Wild Bill, in which he played a preacher.
Up until 2009 he produced Celebrity Sports Invitational charity golf tournaments and ski events to raise money for charities such as the Dream Foundation and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. is an American radio host, activist, and attorney specializing in environmental law. He is the third of eleven children born to Ethel Skakel Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy and is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy...
's Waterkeeper Alliance
Waterkeeper Alliance
Waterkeeper Alliance is an environmental organization founded in 1999, responding to a growing movement of organizations with the name Riverkeeper, Baykeeper, Soundkeeper, and other related "keeper" names, of which there are over 150 around the globe...
.
Marjoe retired from doing any more events in January 2010.
Legacy
In 2007, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival commissioned actor and writer Brian Osborne to write a one-man play about Marjoe Gortner. The play, The Word, premiered at the festival with Suli Holum as director and main collaborator. The Word: A House Party for Jesus was re-imagined in 2010 with director Whit MacLaughlin directing and Rob Kaplowitz designing sound. It opened October 14th, 2010 in Philadelphia,PA and has been performed in New York (Soho Playhouse) Los Angeles, Philadelphia (2011 NET Festival) and Pittsburgh (Kelly Strayhorn Theater) with forthcoming productions in Austin (2012 Fusebox Festival), Chicago and Minneapolis. www.housepartyforjesus.comIn 2008 The Melbourne Underground Film Festival held the first retrospective of the cinematic works of Marjoe Gortner as part of their 9th festival.
External links
- http://www.sarahkernochan.com/documentaries/index.htmlResurrecting 'Marjoe' article by Sarah KernochanSarah KernochanSarah Kernochan is a documentarian, film director, screenwriter and producer from the United States.After graduating in 1965 from Rosemary Hall , where she was a classmate of Glenn Close, and in 1968 from Sarah Lawrence College, she worked as a ghostwriter for The Village Voice for about a year...
.] - Interview with Marjoe
- A Christian View
- Marjoe Gortner Fanpage (German)
- THE WORD: A House Party for Jesus by Brian Osborne
- Marjoe, the documentary