Actor Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, better known as Marjoe Gortner who became America’s youngest ordained minister and whose life inspired the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary “Marjoe,” has died. He was 82. Sarah Kernochan, co-producer of “Marjoe,” announced Gortner’s death in a Facebook post Saturday. Gortner’s fifth wife, Susan Magestro, said in a statement to Variety on Sunday that he died of congestive heart failure in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“Marjoe lived an extraordinary life, shaped by his imagination and rare gift for bringing people together,” Magestro said. Gortner was born Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner on Jan. 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California. The name Marjoe is a blend of the biblical Mary and Joseph. His Evangelical parents introduced him to the world as a gifted child preacher.
They had him ordained at age 4 and, in 1949, had him perform a marriage ceremony for a Paramount newsreel, according to Kernochan in a 2006 article for The American Prospect. Gortner, who lost his faith at 16 after his father ran off with about $3 million, returned to preaching as an adult solely for the money — and brought cameras along.
“Marjoe,” which captured Gortner counting money and sharing tricks of the trade, exposed the independent Pentecostal revival circuit as a highly lucrative, manipulative business. “I can’t really think of a time that I ever believed in God or in you know, ever thought that was a miracle of God that I preached,” Gortner, who said he started preaching at 3.5 years old, recalled in the documentary.
“I don’t think even with all the people gathering around me, you know, thousands of people saying this has to be a miracle, surely God has called you and all that. […] I just knew that I could do it well and my parents had trained