For many people, Marjoe Gortner’s life story sounded almost too extraordinary to be true.
He began as a child preacher before he was old enough to fully understand the world around him, later exposed the revival circuit that had made him famous, became the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, and then reinvented himself as a Hollywood actor, musician, producer, and philanthropist.
Now, his remarkable journey has come to an end.
Marjoe Gortner died on October 2 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 82. According to Variety and statements from his family and wife, his death followed complications related to congestive heart failure.
Gortner’s unusual public life began almost immediately.
He was reportedly ordained as a minister when he was only 3 years old. By the time he was 4, his parents, Vernon and Marge Gortner, had turned him into a traveling preacher, taking him from revival meeting to revival meeting across the country.
Even as a small child, Gortner possessed an extraordinary ability to command a crowd.
He delivered emotional sermons, used dramatic gestures, and quickly became a sensation.
At only 4 years old, he even performed a wedding ceremony despite still speaking with a noticeable childhood lisp.
His unusual first name, Marjoe, was created by combining Mary and Joseph.
His parents publicly claimed their young son had experienced a vision from God. Years later, however, Gortner said that story had been invented and that he had simply been trained to repeat it.
By his teenage years, he had become one of America’s most recognizable young evangelists.
Behind the public image, however, Gortner would later describe a very different reality.
His family traveled constantly between revival meetings, where he preached to audiences that sometimes numbered in the hundreds.
“When I started back, I preached about redemption, love, the war, social responsibility,” Gortner recalled in 1972. Continue Reading ⬇️