Marjoe Gortner, the former child evangelist who became the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary and then an actor in films and television, died Friday, Oct. 2, at age 82. His family announced that he died of complications from congestive heart failure, according to JoBlo’s account of The Hollywood Reporter obituary. His wife, Susan Magestro, confirmed his death, Remind Magazine reported.
A Legacy.com obituary places his death in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and describes the cause only as heart complications. His family said in a statement that he had a “rare gift for bringing people together,” according to Remind Magazine.
From Child Preacher to Documentary Subject
Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born Jan. 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California, and was ordained as a preacher at age 4, according to an obituary published by Türkiye Today. His mother trained him in Pentecostal preaching. At 4 he performed a wedding ceremony that drew the attention of Life magazine, Things Boomers Like reported. The same account says his father took roughly $3 million the family had earned from the revival circuit and left when Gortner was a teenager.
The Legacy.com obituary calls him the “World’s Youngest Minister.” By the time a film crew joined him in 1971 he had been preaching for about 23 years, and he was 27. The crew was led by Howard Smith, a Village Voice columnist who had befriended Gortner, and Sarah Kernochan. Smith and Kernochan directed the film, “Marjoe,” which Things Boomers Like says opened July 24, 1972. It alternates between his sermons and conversations in which he explains how he works a congregation.
What Gortner Said on Camera
The University of Wisconsin Cinematheque quotes him rationalizing the work: “I gave them a show.” He argued that revivals were the only entertainment available to many of the people who attended. Asked in the film whether he could go back to preaching, he said they loved it when a preacher returned, according to Things Boomers Like. The same account quotes him saying, “I’m bad, but I’m not evil.” The line echoes the title of his 1972 album.
The film drew mixed readings from critics. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it a “feature-length screen test,” according to the Wisconsin Cinematheque. The film’s tagline, “You Keep the Faith … Marjoe Keeps the Money,” is quoted by ALTFG, which reports that the documentary was restricted in the American South because of regional religious opposition. ALTFG describes the film as arguing that religious revivalism often mirrors “show business and chicanery.” That reading frames what Gortner told the camera, that the sermons were a performance for audiences who had few other shows to attend.
The Oscar and the Years the Film disappeared
“Marjoe” won Best Documentary Feature at the 45th Academy Awards. The Academy’s ceremony page lists Smith and Kernochan as the producers who accepted it at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on March 27, 1973. The statuette went to the filmmakers. Gortner did not receive one.
His death comes 53 years and about six months after that ceremony, and for roughly 30 of those years the film was out of circulation. The American Prospect reported that the film drew coverage in Time, Newsweek and Life, but the distributor refused to release it south of Des Moines, Iowa, for fear of a backlash in the Bible Belt. The film then disappeared.
Kernochan learned about 30 years later, while working at Duart Labs in Manhattan, that the lab’s vault held the original materials, including a 35mm blow-up, a 16mm negative and magnetic tape, according to the American Prospect. The film belonged to the catalog of a bankrupt company held in receivership, and Sony Film Corp. held a lien.
Kernochan hired attorneys Alan Wertheimer and Darren Trattner, and after two years of legal work she acquired the rights. The same day she signed the papers, New Video Group contacted her about a DVD. The disc came out Jan. 31, 2006, with her short film “Thoth” as an extra, and the film played limited theatrical runs in New York, Florida and Delaware that winter.
Gortner’s acting and music career
After the documentary, Gortner signed a Universal Pictures contract, according to JoBlo’s account of The Hollywood Reporter obituary. He released “Bad but Not Evil” on Chelsea Records in 1972, That Eric Alper reported, with Bob Dylan covers and original songs.
His television debut came in 1973 in “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” the pilot for “Kojak.” Türkiye Today lists the 1974 disaster film “Earthquake,” “Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw” in 1976 and the science-fiction film “Starcrash” in 1978. ALTFG notes that “Earthquake” featured Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner and that Gortner later played a preacher in Walter Hill’s 1995 Western “Wild Bill.” JoBlo, summarizing The Hollywood Reporter, also lists the horror film “Mausoleum.”
On television he played Vince Karlotti in the sixth season of “Falcon Crest,” per that obituary. Türkiye Today puts the run at 17 episodes in 1986 and 1987, with the character a polygamist and fake psychic medium. ALTFG counts about 20 film and television productions in his career. Later in life he produced charitable television specials, and the Legacy.com obituary says he organized celebrity sporting events that raised money for the Dream Foundation and environmental causes.
He was married five times, per The Hollywood Reporter. Legacy.com lists his survivors as his wife, two children, a sister, two stepdaughters and a stepgranddaughter. Gortner was in the pulpit for about 23 years before the camera crew arrived. His screen credits run from the 1973 “Kojak” pilot to “Wild Bill” in 1995, a span of 22 years.
