Marjoe Gortner, the former child preacher who became the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe before launching an acting career that included Earthquake, The Food of the Gods, Starcrash, Mausoleum, and Falcon Crest, has died at the age of 82. Gortner died Friday from complications related to congestive heart failure, his family announced (via The Hollywood Reporter).
His life and career were anything but ordinary. Gortner became famous as a child evangelical preacher, toured the country delivering dramatic sermons, and later allowed filmmakers to document his final revival tour. That footage became Marjoe, a 1972 documentary that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Soon afterward, Gortner traded the revival circuit for Hollywood, signing a contract with Universal Pictures and embarking on a career that took him from major disaster movies to cult science fiction and horror, network television, and plenty of memorable genre productions.
Born Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner on January 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California, Gortner was introduced to showmanship at a young age. His father was a Christian evangelical minister (the name Marjoe is a combination of Mary and Joseph), and because Gortner was an unusually articulate child, his parents had him ordained as a preacher when he was just 4 years old.
Gortner became a celebrity on the revival circuit, delivering highly theatrical sermons across the United States. His family reportedly amassed a fortune from his preaching career, although Gortner later said his father disappeared with the money shortly before his 16th birthday.
In 1971, Gortner allowed a film crew to follow him during what he said would be his final revival tour. The resulting documentary, Marjoe, was directed and produced by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972 and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The film offered a candid look at Gortner’s life as a traveling evangelist. He explained how he and other preachers manipulated audiences during revival meetings, while the cameras also captured him counting the money collected during one of his performances. Gortner later said he studied Mick Jagger as inspiration for his preaching style, which gives you a pretty good idea of just how theatrical his performances were.
The notoriety surrounding Marjoe helped propel Gortner into another kind of performance career: acting.
In 1972, Gortner also recorded the album Bad, but Not Evil, which included his versions of “I Shall Be Released” and “Lo and Behold!”
He soon signed a contract with Universal Pictures. His first screen acting role came in the 1973 television movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders, directed by Joseph Sargent. The film served as the pilot for the CBS crime series Kojak, with Gortner playing junkie Teddy Hopper opposite Telly Savalas.
From there, Gortner built a surprisingly eclectic résumé.
One of his most notable early film roles came in 1974’s Earthquake, the massive disaster movie directed by Mark Robson and featuring an all-star cast that included Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold, Victoria Principal, and Richard Roundtree. Gortner played Jody Joad, a grocery store manager who becomes a National Guardsman during the chaos.
He followed that with a string of movies that made him a familiar face to genre fans. In 1976, he starred opposite Lynda Carter in Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, playing Lyle Wheeler. That same year, he appeared in the disaster/creature feature The Food of the Gods, based loosely on H.G. Wells’ novel, playing Morgan.
He also starred in the TV movie Mayday at 40,000 Feet! and appeared in Acapulco Gold. In 1977, Gortner took on the role of Jessie in Viva Knievel!, the daredevil biopic starring Evel Knievel, and played Digger in the TV movie Sidewinder 1.
As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, Gorton starred as Akton in the gloriously strange 1978 space opera Starcrash, a Star Wars-inspired Italian-American production that has developed a devoted cult following. He also appeared in the 1979 drama When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, and continued making television appearances.
Then came a run of genre credits that included Mausoleum, Jungle Warriors, Hellhole, The Survivalist, and American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt. Gortner’s filmography is a fun one to revisit.
Gortner was equally prolific on television. His credits included Barnaby Jones, Medical Center, Police Story, Fantasy Island, The A-Team, Matt Houston, Whiz Kids, Airwolf, Street Hawk, T.J. Hooker, Hotel, Half Nelson and The Twilight Zone. He even appeared on Laugh-In.
One of his most substantial television roles came on Falcon Crest. During the show’s sixth season in 1986-87, Gortner played Vince Karlotti, a colorful polygamist and faux psychic medium. He appeared in 17 episodes. The role was appropriate given Gortner’s unusual personal history, as he was able to draw upon his own experiences with religious performance and showmanship.
Gortner continued appearing on television and in movies through the 1990s. His later credits included Wild Bill, in which he played a preacher, and The Debtors.
Gortner never became the kind of household-name movie star that his early Universal contract might have suggested, but his career became something more interesting: a sprawling collection of cult movies, disaster films, television shows, and genre favorites. His filmography includes everything from the massive ensemble spectacle of Earthquake to the psychedelic space adventure of Starcrash, the giant rat horror of The Food of the Gods, the supernatural terror of Mausoleum, and the Cannon action of American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt.
For genre fans, that’s quite a résumé. And it all came after a childhood spent traveling the country as a celebrity preacher and a documentary that exposed the strange world he had grown up in.
Beyond acting, Gortner worked as a producer on Circus of the Stars specials and celebrity sports invitationals that raised money for charity.
He was married five times, including a brief marriage to American Graffiti actress Candy Clark. He married his fifth wife, Susan, in 2019.
Gortner’s final years were a long way removed from the revival tents where he first became famous, but his unusual journey from child preacher to Oscar-winning documentary subject to Universal contract player and cult-movie regular remains one of the stranger career paths in Hollywood history.
Marjoe Gortner was 82. He left behind a filmography that was more colorful than the average Hollywood résumé and a life story that was stranger than anything a screenwriter could have invented. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans.