That was a famous shot, because it wasn't a cutaway. he is one of famous Evangelist with the age 77 years old group. In 1974 he made several appearances in film and television. If I had to chose one Christian religion to believe inand thank God I dontId chose the Pentecostal faith, announces Marjoe Gortner during an eighty-minute film documentary of his last few months as a Pentecostal evangelist on the revival circuit. From the time he was four, until he was fourteen (when his youth was no longer extraordinary enough to draw crowds), his parents used his novelty evangelist act to make money. Its a very gory religion. He also tells them what to watch for, what to zoom in onpeople getting healed (its all psychosomatic, Marjoe explains) or others speaking in tongues. I thought, I went through all of this and there's nothing! So the film did well with the critics, but didn't reach a wide audience. He starred in the television movies The Gun and the Pulpit and Pray for the Wildcats, and appeared in an episode of Nakia, a 1974 police drama on ABC. If you cant feel the Spirit here tonight youre dead, he repeats in meeting after meeting, alternating this with a few minutes of pseudo-tongues-speaking. One of the people he approached was my partner, Howard. There was a scene we had to cut where an artist friend of mine was painting a portrait of him and talking to him in a very motherly way, which was very disarming for Marjoe. When we have statistics that four out of ten Americans call themselves born again, that's scary. What was it like having Marjoe as a collaborator? The new play opened October 14, 2010, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has since been performed in New York (the Soho Playhouse), Los Angeles, Philadelphia (the 2011 NET Festival), and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Kelly Strayhorn Theater), with other productions planned for Austin, Chicago, and Minneapolis. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four, due to his extraordinary speaking ability. We see Marjoes accomplished evangelist act during a homey dinner scene with that pastor and his family. Following a recording career with RCA as a singer-songwriter, Kernochan went on to win her second Academy Award in 2002 for the documentary short Thoth, about a transgender street performer. Vernon abandoned the family, taking all the money they had earned (approximately three million dollars) and leaving Marjoe, his mother, and his brother destitute. Sarah Kernochan scripted the upcoming film Learning to Drive staring Ben Kingsley, which will hit theaters this spring. He didn't know that Marjoe was still wearing a mic. He was a crazy person. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four, due to his extraordinary speaking ability. Church leaders say theyre not promoting drinking and dancing, just black community development. Gortner's first acting role was in the 1972 film "The Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus". For that, we were shooting at the end of a corridor with a long lens. I would've maybe thought that the preacher in Dallas was honest, but about ten years later he was arrested for passing stolen cars across the border from Mexico and went to jail. (He admits he hadnt hit the big time.). His story is powerful and interesting. Unbeknownst to everyone involved including, at one point, his father he gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers between sermons and revivals, some including other preachers, explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. Since this was your first major project, what was your life like leading up to Marjoe? You can watch it below. What about Howard? His voice was really extraordinary: strong and clear and full of sincere emotion. He's the embodiment of everything skeptics assume to be true about old-time-relijun, revivalistic, faith-healing Pentecostalism. The new play opened October 14, 2010, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has since been performed in New York (the Soho Playhouse), Los Angeles, Philadelphia (the 2011 NET Festival), and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Kelly Strayhorn Theater), with other productions planned for Austin, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Marjoe is a 1972 documentary that follows Marjoe Gortner on his final revival preaching tour. By the time he was sixteen, his family had amassed what he later estimated to be three million dollars. Marjoe, recently released and premiering in New York City, purports to be an expos of revivalists, of present-day Elmer Gantrys who take prey on the hearts and wallets of innocent, sincere. 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. As you can see in this clip, he was disturbingly believable. Marjoe is the real-life Elmer Gantry, though perhaps more restrained in his pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner is a former evangelist preacher and actor. I used to ghostwrite his column, though I never got a byline. VICE: What did you originally pitch to the studio as the idea behind Marjoe?Sarah Kernochan: The concept was to follow him around and do interviews explaining what he was doing. Marjoe Gortner, better known by her family name Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, is a popular American Evangelist. Both parents traveled with him and both were preachers. desire to get the Holy Ghost. He put out a flyer that said something like "Come to a revival meeting with stars of the movie Marjoe!" She even said something to the effect that he looks like a devil child. We are not interested in influencing them and we certainly dont want to be influenced by them.. The United Christian Council, representing fourteen Protestant bodies, called on the prime minister to either support or create a marriage bill that would benefit Israels disenfranchised Protestants. In five years I would have been on top and probably a millionaire. Soldier Scene (8/10) | Movieclips (https://youtu.be/Xd398uQ2O1s), The Fascinating History of 70s and 80s Fern Bars, The Jesus Movement of the 1970s: When Christianity was Groovy. Gortner spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant beatnik. I think it was an object of curiosity. Throughout his childhood, he officiated weddings, delivered theatrical sermons, and earned his parents an estimated $3 million, none of which he ever saw. It was going to take a long time for him to break into show business. This is tv evangelist Marjoe Gortner, he started his grift as a child with his preacher father. But what was it that that kept the film from being widely distributed and where did it play? When I was traveling (as a minister), I'd see someone who wanted to The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the biblical names "Mary" and "Joseph". All of the laughter, dancing, and shouting in religious services can be infectious. You could do anything there. He needed money, and he knew the ropes. I realized that Id have to go into this thing completely, belief and all, or give it up. He decided to give it up, but he didnt leave quietly. They were always careful never to leave bruises that might be noticed later. Marjoe booked a tour around the country with Smith and a film crew following him as he preached in different venues. The documentary went on to win the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and earned massive amounts of critical acclaim. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four, due to his extraordinary speaking ability. Starcrash, The Food of the Gods, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt, Earthquake. Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, generally known as Marjoe Gortner (born January 14, 1944 (age 66) in Long Beach, California), is a former revivalist who first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s when he became the youngest ordained preacher at the age of four, and then outright Vernon was excommunicated from his church, but he and Marge ran a successful store in Long Beach, California. The Free For All Baptist Churchwhich admits its not like most Baptist churchesplans to convert the present club into a twenty-four-hour soul-food restaurant while continuing the bar operations. He co-starred with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner in Earthquake, an Oscar-winning disaster movie that premiered in 1974. He also starred in several B-movies such as the TV film The Gun and the Pulpit (1974; also released on home video . 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 felt that he was a natural performer, naturally charismatic. And I said no, let's do it ourselves, and that's when we were off and running. Our guide was a fire-and-brimstone minister named Marjoe Gortner. 1973. Gortner rejoined the ministry as a young adult solely as a means of earning a living, not as a believer. He actually did have a brain tumor, I'm not just exaggerating. And, yet, he remains mostly forgotten today. The play, The Word, premiered at the Festival with Suli Holum as director and main collaborator. Its not just anyone who can get married in Israel, as resident Protestants and Jews whose proposed marriages fall outside rabbinical law (i.e., mixed marriages) know. To alleviate the problem for Israelis, the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) has proposed a civil-marriage bill, scheduled to be voted on in October. The preachers wife complains about all the phony evangelists running around, and Marjoe agrees, adding that the congregation can tell after a night or two if the man is sincere. Yeah, after putting the film down for making religious people look stupid, he ripped off some things from Marjoe. People just assumed that we were in the program. In 2007, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival commissioned actor and writer Brian Osborne to write a one-man play about Gortner. He grew resentful of his parents and bitter over the childhood they had forced upon him. Last fall the church opened a similar night spot in Underground Atlanta, a turn-of-the-century tourist center. He would gather the information, and I would put it together and write it up for him. When he came to New York, he discovered quickly that no one was going to handle him. American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter, American broadcast journalist, television personality, and author, , Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California, USA, Candy Clark (April 1978-14 December 1979), https://archive.org/details/allthingsareposs00harr/page/234, https://books.google.com/books?id=Zt_kCEvP4KcC&pg=PA121, https://books.google.com/books?id=reYCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA57, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19490107&id=g_8uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MtwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4104,1333211, http://dangerousminds.net/comments/a_lot_of_people_do_bad_things_the_bizarre_tale_of_child_evangelist_turned_c, https://books.google.com/books?id=hUoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA40, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19510316&id=lOA-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=G00MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2460,5656802, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=XUmZziu-z7kC&dat=19510922&printsec=frontpage&hl=en, http://karenstollznow.com/kids-of-the-cloth-child-preachers/, http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/interview-with-marjoe-gortner, https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/31480/Marjoe/details, https://books.google.com/books?id=NQ8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA24, https://movies.nytimes.com/person/27902/Marjoe-Gortner, https://books.google.com/books?id=7GN0E_diWbAC&pg=PA137, https://books.google.com/books?id=w8KztFy6QYwC&pg=PA1281, https://books.google.com/books?id=AKlgjBCPPnsC&pg=PA91, http://www.ensembletheaters.net/programs/micro-festivals/genre-defying-work-philadelphia, http://www.muff.com.au/vault/2008/marjoe.html, //www.google.com/search?&q=%22Marjoe+Gortner%22+site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers, //scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Marjoe+Gortner%22, https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=%22Marjoe+Gortner%22&acc=on&wc=on, http://www.sarahkernochan.com/documentaries/index.html, https://web.archive.org/web/20000901002143/http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/marjoe.htm, http://www.aveleyman.com/ActorCredit.aspx?ActorID=6798, http://catalogo.bne.es/uhtbin/authoritybrowse.cgi?action=display&authority_id=XX1451679, https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb141825770, https://data.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb141825770, https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2005080927, http://data.bibliotheken.nl/id/thes/p071650512, https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2005080927. I'm not sure we were very good at relaxing him; maybe nobody could. Documenting Evangelicals is a lot more popular with audiences today than it was in 1972. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a143dc49d8691ed Im bad, but Im not evil., Marjoe, the documentary directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan, was released on July 24, 1972, during the heyday of the Jesus Movement. He got to know Marjoe and was fascinated by his story. By 1951, his younger brother Vernoe was brought into the act. Seriously. The negative was in such good shape, and for a 16-millimeter blowup, it looks pretty damn good. How'd you meet Marjoe? He later started giving bylines to women who wrote his stuff. Read about our approach to external linking. 167.86.88.15 But they went bankrupt and Columbia put a lien on the catalogue. A glory, hallelujah meant that he was speaking too fast, a praise Jesus that he was going too slow. Gortner kicked off his entertainment career by acting in action flicks like "Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw" (1976) and the Marjoe Gortner film "Sidewinder One" (1977). This Week in AG History October 25, 1930 By Darrin J. Rodgers Originally published on AG News, 24 October 2019 Most people today probably associate the name Gortner with Marjoe Gortner (1944- ), the child evangelist-turned-movie star. Marjoe Gortner was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. Were there any religious people who were trying to keep the film from reaching a wide audience? Since I'm no longer able to find this clip anywhere on the Internet I was inspired to share it here. Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a family with a long evangelical heritage. That must have been quite a moment for you. From 1978 to December 14, 1979, Gortner was married to actress Candy Clark. Howard Smith and Marjoe became partners. And he was impatient because he was used to being a star. Former evangelist and film actor, Marjoe Gortner is the grandson of prominent Assemblies of God leader J. Narver Gortner. I was concerned about him being likable. Places above that waistline of Americathe Bible Belt. 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. So, ever the hustler, he went around with his scrapbook, detailing this weird childhood that he'd had, which was very impressive. Marjoe Gortner (born 1944, his first name a portmanteau of "Mary" and "Joseph") was a famous child preacher. And I had to keep proving it over and over and over again. Steven Gaines was working in a small auction gallery in 1971 when he met former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner at Max's Kansas City, a New York restaurant and club. I think he was also hearing that from other people in the crew. 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