He made enough money to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California and lived off his earnings before returning to the circuit. At the time of the film's release, it generated considerable press, but the movie was not shown widely in theaters in the Southern United States. Marjoe later said this was a fictional story that his parents forced him to repeat. [1], Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Black Fox: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler, Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World. In 1973, the Academy Award for best documentary feature film was granted to “Marjoe,” an expose of the world’s youngest preacher and evangelist. 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.[7]. In his early career as the 4-year-old "World's Youngest Ordained Minister," Pentecostal preacher Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner became a 'Miracle Child' extraordinaire. His mother Marge, who has been labelled as "exuberant," was the person who introduced him as a preacher, and is notable for his success as a child. Marjoe is a 1972 documentary produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life and “ministry” of Marjoe Gortner. 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. [4] His mother Marge, who has been labelled as "exuberant," was the person who introduced him as a preacher, and is notable for his success as a child. Marjoe was supposedly taught to say "hallelujah" before he could say "mom" or "dad." Audiences believed Marjoe was a "miracle child" receiving sermons from God while sleeping — in reality he carefully memorised his sermons under harsh discipline.His mother would suffocate him under a pillow or water … The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the biblical names "Mary" and "Joseph". The play, The Word, premiered at the Festival with Suli Holum as director and main collaborator. As a young man, he preached on the revival circuit and brought celebrity to the revival movement. "[1] The restored film has since been released on DVD and streaming services. The film contains scenes from revival meetings showing Gortner preaching and praying for people in Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Detroit, and Anaheim. 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),[22] and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Kelly Strayhorn Theater), with other productions planned for Austin, Chicago, and Minneapolis. In 2002 the negative and other elements were found in a vault in New York City. Born on January 14th, 1944. After a break from his ‘ministry’, he found himself short of money in his early twenties and so resumed preaching. He decided his performing talents might be put to use as an actor or singer. I watched it in the theatre in 1972 and love it just as much today on my DVD player! "Save All My Brothers", the film's theme song, was written by Sarah Kernochan and Joseph Brooks, who also arranged it, and it was sung by Jerry Keller.[4]. Vernon noticed his son's talent for mimicryand his f… Former evangelist and film actor, Marjoe Gortner is the grandson of prominent Assemblies of God leader J. Narver Gortner. His parents claimed that the boy had received a vision from God during a bath, and he started preaching. Marjoe performed his first marriage at the age of 4 and even Jesus didn't come out until he was 12. [citation needed]. Microfiche. He claimed they enforced this by mock-drowning him because they could not beat him which would leave bruises … A gifted speaker from a very young age, Gortner received his ordination as a preacher when he was only four years old and spent his childhood and early teenage years traveling throughout the United States as a celebrity Christian Revivalist movement member. They trained him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. State of California. One such man was Marjoe Gortner. Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2194&dat=19490107&id=g_8uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MtwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4104,1333211, "Marjoe Continues by Popular Demand (advertisement)", "World's Youngest Evangelists (advertisement)", "Movies: Marjoe (1972) – Cast, Credits & Awards", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marjoe_Gortner&oldid=1004069451, BLP articles lacking sources from November 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2012, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 31 January 2021, at 23:12. Gortner portrayed the psychopathic, hostage-taking drug dealer in Milton Katselas's 1979 screen adaptation of Mark Medoff's play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?. [2] The Academy Film Archive preserved Marjoe in 2005. [5] On November 15, 2005, in New York City, the IFC Center showed Marjoe as the closing film in a series of documentaries called "Stranger Than Fiction". [10] 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. [13], Gortner capitalized on the success of the documentary. Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (born January 14, 1944) is a former evangelist preacher and actor. He was the youngest known in that position. Marjoe Gortner is the man! Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a family with a long evangelical heritage. [2], Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a family with a long evangelical heritage. [11] Disillusioned, Gortner then left his mother for San Francisco. Marjoe was preaching from the time when he was just a child, around the age of four. This film is a documentary done in the early 1970s by a man named Marjoe Gortner, who was raised by televangelist parents in the 1940s and 50s. The film won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. This movie is really great-I love it! Born in 1944, Marjoe Gortner’s parents trained their young son to preach, and had him ordained as a Pentecostal preacher at the age of four. Since1972 not much has changed, many evangelists today are just the same as you will see in the next film,James Randi exposes peter popoff. It was back in 1948 that little Marjoe, dressed in a sailor suit and topped with a head of golden curls, married a California couple and made Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not. Marjoe Gortner is not listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having been the world's youngest preacher, but he should be. In fact, he claimed to be an atheist! Produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan, it’s flat-out great, a singular document chronicling the life of former child evangelist, Marjoe Gortner who, as an adult superstar preacher, admits on film that he’s using the whole evangelist racquet to scam answer-hungry parishioners out of … In the 1950's he was known as the youngest ordained minister in the world (officially ordained at just 4 years old). 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. [14] He cut an LP with Chelsea Records entitled Bad, but Not Evil,[15] named after his description of himself in the documentary.[5]. This is one hell of a film to watch. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the 1972 Academy Award for best documentary. Marjoe Gortner was a child prodogy. [18] He also appeared frequently in the 1980s Circus of the Stars specials. When Gortner was a child, his father, Vernon, a third-generation Christian minister, noticed his son's talent for mimicry and his fearlessness of strangers and public settings. Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner is an American actor and former evangelist preacher. [citation needed]. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marjoe&oldid=1004090206, Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners, Documentary films about Christianity in the United States, Documentary films critical of Christianity, Pages using infobox film with unknown empty parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 1 February 2021, at 01:03. Some of the evangelists even revealed where they bought properties kept secret and gave him advice to follow. In the disaster film, Earthquake, he was Sgt. He spent the next several years using his fame and status as an evangelist to earn a living from both tent revivals and televangelism. In the early 1980s, Gortner hosted the short-lived reality TV series, Speak Up, America. Gortner said he studied Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones,[1] as a model for his routine. His parents earned large sums of money off of his earnings until the point he outgrew the novelty of his youthfulness. The formation of his name from combining the names of Mary and Joseph is alluded to in numerous sources; however, some early sources state that he was named for his mother, Marge. In real life, Marjoe Gortner was a 4 year-old child preacher whose parents made millions on him. Marjoe Gortner was a child preacher who earned millions of dollars for his parents, beginning in the late 1940s. Storyline Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism". [4] Oui magazine hired him to cover Millennium '73, a November 1973 festival headlined by the "boy guru" Guru Maharaj Ji. Marjoe Gortner, Child Preacher Marjoe Gortner made headlines in the late 1940s when, at the age of 3½, he became an evangelist preacher. [citation needed]. This documentary now is noted as one of the most vehement criticisms of Pentecostal preaching. [19] He also played a terrorist preacher in a second-season episode of Airwolf, and appeared on Falcon Crest as corrupt psychic-cum-medium "Vince Karlotti" (1986–87). Billed simply as Marjoe, hit #109 on Billboard's "Bubbling Under" singles chart in 1972 with "Lo and Behold" (Chelsea 0107). It will surely enlighten generations not yet born! 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