When Marjoe was three, his father, a second generation evangelical minister, noticed his son's talent for mimicry and overall fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed Marjoe had received a vision from God during a bath and began training him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. By the time Marjoe 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 Marjoe'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, Marjoe and his parents traveled the rural United States, holding revival meetings. As well as teaching him scriptural passages, Marjoe's 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 Marjoe was sixteen, he later estimated, his family had amassed maybe three million dollars; shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Marjoe's father absconded with the money, and a disillusioned Marjoe left his mother for San Francisco, where he was taken in by and became the lover of an older woman. Marjoe 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 evangelical circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rockers, most notably Mick Jagger. Marjoe 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, Marjoe suffered a crisis of conscience -- in particular about the threats of damnation he felt compelled to weave into his sermons -- and resolved to make one final tour, this time on film. Under the pretense of making a documentary on the evangelical and non-denominational faiths, Marjoe assembled a documentary film crew to follow him around the Southern United States during 1971; unbeknownst to everyone else involved -- including, at one point, his father -- Marjoe gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers in between sermons and revivals, explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. After sermons, the filmmakers were invited back to Marjoe's hotel room to tape him counting the money he 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. Gortner 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 disaster film Earthquake as a psychotic National Guardsman, and in the television movie Pray for the Wildcats.
During the late 1970s, Marjoe attempted to self-finance another film, this time a pseudo-fictional drama about an evangelist con-man and based in part on his real-life experiences. The film started shooting in New Orleans, Louisiana, but went bankrupt less than 6-weeks into production. The film was never completed.
Gortner was married briefly to Candy Clark, from 1978-1979.
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.
Gortner reappeared a few years later, starring in several B-movies such as Starcrash and hosting an early-1980s reality TV series called Speak Up America before ending his movie career in 1995. Today he sponsors charity golf tournaments and other events.
His most recent film appearance was in the 1995 feature Wild Bill, where he played, appropriately enough, a preacher.
https://archive.org/details/Marjoe.1972.Legendado
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxfThlCcfHI
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (generally known as Marjoe Gortner; born January 14, 1944 in Long Beach, California) is a controversial former evangelist preacher and actor. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him at age four to be ordained as a preacher, due to his extraordinary speaking ability; he was the youngest known in that position. As a young man, he preached on the revival circuit and bought celebrity to the revival movement.
He became a celebrity during the 1970s when he starred in Marjoe (1972), a behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. This won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. This documentary is now noted as one of the most vehement criticisms of Pentecostal praxis…
…Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a long evangelical heritage. The name “Marjoe” is a portmanteau of the biblical names “Mary” and “Joseph”. His father Vernon was a third-generation Christian evangelical minister who preached at revivals. His mother, who has been labelled as “exuberant”, was the person who introduced him as a preacher and is notable for his success as a child. Vernon noticed his son’s talent for mimicry and his fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed that the boy had received a vision from God during a bath, and started preaching. Marjoe later said this was a fictional story that his parents forced him to repeat. He claimed they compelled him to do this by using mock-drowning episodes; they did not beat him as they did not want to leave bruises that might be noticed during his many public appearances.
They trained him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. When he was four, his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony attended by the press, including photographers from Life and Paramount studios.Until his teenage years, Gortner and his parents traveled throughout the United States holding revival meetings,[7] and by 1951 his younger brother Vernoe had been incorporated into the act. As well as teaching Marjoe scriptural passages, his parents also taught him several money-raising tactics, including the sale of supposedly “holy” articles at revivals. He would promise that such items could be used to heal the sick and dying. He was however for the majority of his childhood unknown and “relatively insignificant” as an evangelist, as he found fame much later from his documentary…
…Gortner spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant hippie until his early twenties. Hard-pressed for money, he decided to put his old skills to work and re-emerged on the preaching circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rock stars, most notably Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. He made enough to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California and lived off his earnings before returning to the circuit.
In the late 1960s, Gortner experienced a crisis of conscience about his double life. He decided 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 during 1971 on a final tour of revival meetings in California, Texas, and Michigan. Unbeknownst to everyone involved – including, at one point, his father – he gave “backstage” interviews to the filmmakers between sermons and revivals, explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. The filmmakers also shot his counting the money he had collected during the day later in his hotel room. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the 1972 Academy Award for best documentary…
https://brucegerencser.net/2015/05/bruce-what-do-think-of-the-marjoe-gortner-story/
As a Baptist, I had a healthy mistrust and hate for all things pentecostal and charismatic. I saw their preachers as charlatans and false prophets. A good friend of mine and fellow non-believer was a charismatic pastor for twenty years. We never could have been friends while we were in the ministry because I thought people like him were being used by Satan to deceive the masses.
When it comes to stories like Marjoe, the question I have is whether the person was sincere. Were they a true blue believer? Did they really believe they could heal people? Did they really believe God used them to work miracles? In Marjoe’s case, he was conditioned and indoctrinated by his parents to believe that he really had these gifts. Were his parents true blue believers? That’s the bigger question. Were they just passing on the gifts to their talented, precocious son or were they con artists, Elmer Gantry-like hustlers for God?
Thanks to modern technology and dogged investigative reporters, we now know that many of the pentecostal and charismatic evangelists are frauds. People like Peter Popoff, Ernest Angley, Robert Tilton, WV Grant, Leroy Jenkins,Bob Larson, and Benny Hinn are hustlers out to fleece the flock of God. Many of the prosperity gospel preachers are con-artists who have found a way to become fabulously rich off the pain, suffering, and poverty of others. One quick way to judge an evangelist or ministry is to look at their checkbook. Where’s the money going? Whose being enriched by the “ministry” of Bro Heal Them All? In the case of Marjoe, not only did he make quite a bit of money, so did his parents. The family business was hustling for Jesus and it paid quite well. In the end, Marjoe’s father ran off with the cash and left his son and wife behind.
When I was in college, I cleaned a local Sweden House restaurant. One night, a couple of pentecostal evangelists had rented one of the banquet rooms for a healing service. After the service, not knowing I was standing around the corner, I heard the evangelists bitterly complaining about how poor the offering was. This was my first taste of money driven Christianity. As I would learn later, Baptists had their own problem with money-grubbing con-artists, men who preached up a storm only so it would rain twenty-dollar bills. I think the average Christian would be shocked to find out how many of the preachers they love, trust, and support are in it for fame and money. I know of several well known IFB preachers who retired from the ministry as millionaires. Ain’t God good?
In the mid 1970’s, I lived in Sierra Vista, Arizona. I worked for a local grocery store. Every week, several van loads of Pentecostals would come into Food Giant to shop. They were from Miracle Valley, Arizona, the home of evangelist AA Allen. Allen, an alcoholic died in 1970 after a heavy drinking binge. He was 59. The van loads of long dressed women were from one of the Miracle Valley pentecostal ministries or colleges. This was my first exposure to Pentecostals. At the time, I thought, nice looking women, too much clothing. My girlfriend, at the time, wore skirts and dresses that were in keeping with style of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s In other words, I could see her legs.
http://jahtruth.net/rabbis.htm
The DEADLY VIRUS of CELEBRITY CHRISTIANITY
by J. Lee Grady
Some bigheaded preachers demand rock star treatment. If the
apostle Paul were around today he might throw rocks at them.
Just when I thought we charismatics had finally taken enough
abuse from the egomaniac ministers in our midst, I've learned that
some of our leaders are taking things to a new extreme. We've
moved beyond the red carpets, limousines and entourages of the
1990s. A new strain of the celebrity virus is spreading in large
segments of the church.
"What is this sickness spreading in the body of Christ? All I know
is that God is grieved by all of this shameful carnality."
One friend of mine in Texas recently inquired to see if a prominent
preacher could speak at her conference. The minister's assistant
faxed back a list of requirements that had to be met in order to
book a speaking engagement. The demands included:
a.. a five-figure honorarium
b.. a $10,000 gasoline deposit for the private plane
c.. a manicurist and hairstylist for the speaker
d.. a suite in a five-star hotel
e.. a luxury car from the airport to the hotel (2004 model or
newer)
f.. room-temperature Perrier
This really makes me wonder how the apostle Paul, Timothy or
Priscilla managed ministering to so many people in Ephesus,
Corinth and Thessalonica. How did they survive without a
manicurist if they broke a nail while laying hands on the sick?
I was relieved to know that this celebrity preacher's requirements
in 2007 did not include a set of armed bodyguards - because I just
might want to jump uninvited into her Rolls-Royce and say a few
words.
It gets worse, if you can believe it. At a charismatic conference in
an East Coast city recently, a pastor stood on a stage in front of
a large crowd and smugly announced that the guest speaker was
"more than an apostle." Then the host asked everyone to bow
down to the person, claiming that this posture was necessary to
release God's power.
"This is the only way you can receive this kind of anointing!" the
host declared, bowing in front of the speaker. Immediately, about
80 percent of the audience fell prostrate on the floor. The few who
were uncomfortable with the weird spiritual control in the room
either walked out or stood in silent protest.
So today, I guess it's not enough to feed a celebrity preacher's ego
by treating them like a rock star. We also are required to worship
him.
And apparently in some places you even have to pay big bucks to
speak with him. In a city in the South, a well-known preacher is
known to ask for money in order to secure a five- or 10-minute
counseling session. The minister uses Proverbs 18:16, "A man's
gift makes room for him and brings him before great men" (NASB),
to support this bizarre practice. Some people are known to give
more than $1,000 for a short meeting.
People on fixed incomes need not apply. (That would include
lepers, blind beggars, Samaritan women or any other social
outcasts who were welcomed and healed by Jesus without payment.)
What has become of the American church? What is this sickness
spreading in the body of Christ? I don't know whom to blame more
for it: The narcissistic minister who craves the attention, or the
spiritually naive crowds who place these arrogant people on their
shaky pedestals. All I know is that God is grieved by all of this
shameful carnality.
How far we have fallen from authentic New Testament faith. Paul,
who carried the anointing of an apostle but often described himself
as a bond slave, told the Thessalonians, "Having so fond an
affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only
the gospel of God but also our own lives" (1 Thess. 2:8).
New Testament Christianity is humble, selfless and authentic. And
those who carry the truth don't preach for selfish gain or to meet
an emotional need for attention. May God help us root out the false
apostles and false teachers who are making the American church
sick with their man-centered, money-focused heresies.
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