lit a candle 4h ago82. that documentary still messes with my head
Their story
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, known professionally as Marjoe Gortner, was an American evangelist preacher and actor whose childhood ministry and later confession shaped one of the most unusual careers in American entertainment. Ordained as a preacher at four and celebrated on the revival circuit, he later helped make the documentary…
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, known professionally as Marjoe Gortner, was an American evangelist preacher and actor whose childhood ministry and later confession shaped one of the most unusual careers in American entertainment. Ordained as a preacher at four and celebrated on the revival circuit, he later helped make the documentary Marjoe (1972), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and exposed the money-making machinery of Pentecostal revivalism from the inside. He died on 2 October 2026 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 82. His wife, Susan Magestro, said he had lived for years with congestive heart failure.
Gortner was born on 14 January 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a family steeped in evangelical preaching. His given name combined Mary and Joseph. His father, Vernon Robert Gortner, was a third-generation revival minister; his mother, Marge, presented the boy as a prodigy. The family claimed he had received a vision from God; Marjoe later said that story was invented and that he was trained, under severe pressure, to deliver sermons with dramatic gestures. At four he performed a marriage ceremony for the press, including photographers from Life and Paramount. Through his teens the family travelled the United States holding revivals. By sixteen they had amassed what he later estimated at about three million dollars; shortly afterward his father absconded with the money.
After a restless late adolescence, Gortner returned to the circuit in the late 1960s while considering acting and singing. Documentarians Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan followed his final 1971 revival tour across California, Texas and Michigan. Between sermons he explained how ministers worked congregations and collected cash; hotel-room footage showed him counting the day's take. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the 1972 Oscar and became a lasting critique of Pentecostal showmanship. He released the album Bad, but Not Evil that year and began acting with a role in the Kojak pilot The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973).
On screen he often played volatile outsiders. In Earthquake (1974) he was Sgt. Jody Joad, a grocery manager turned National Guardsman. Other films included Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976), The Food of the Gods (1976), Starcrash (1978) and When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979). Television credits included Police Story, Airwolf, Falcon Crest (as corrupt psychic Vince Karlotti, 1986-87), The A-Team, Fantasy Island and Circus of the Stars. He hosted the short-lived Speak Up, America and later produced celebrity sports invitationals that raised large sums for charity. His last film role was a preacher in Wild Bill (1995).
Gortner married several times, including brief marriages to actress Candy Clark and others; he married Susan Magestro in Santa Fe in 2019. Colleagues remembered his imagination and his gift for bringing people together for causes beyond the screen. He leaves a record that spans child revival stardom, an Oscar-winning self-exposé, and decades of character work in film and television.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Variety; The Hollywood Reporter.
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1by People Forever
