Jerry Brito

Marjoe Gortner: Huckster or hero?

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Recently I saw the terrific 1972 documentary Marjoe recommended by Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great. It tells the story of Marjoe Gortman, a child preacher who since the age of four was trotted around by his parents at tent revivals to much (lucrative) fanfare. As Hitchens explains,

A decade or so later, Mr. Gortner exacted the best possible revenge for his stolen and empty childhood, and decided to do the general public a favor in order to make up for his conscious fraudulence. He invited a film crew to follow him as he ostensibly “returned” to preach the gospel, and took the trouble to explain how all the tricks are pulled. This is how you induce motherly women (he was a handsome lad) to part with their savings. This is how you time the music to create an ecstatic effect. This is when you speak of how Jesus visited you personally. Here is how you put invisible ink on your forehead, in the shape of a cross, so that it will suddenly show up when you start perspiring. This is when you really move in for the kill. He keeps all his promises, telling the film’s director in advance what he can and will do and then going out into the auditorium to enact it with absolute conviction. People weep and yell, and collapse in spasms and fits, shrieking their savior’s name. Cynical, coarse, brutish old men and women wait for the psychological moment to demand money, and start counting it gleefully before the charade of the “service” is even over. … The film Marjoe won an Academy Award in 1972, and has made absolutely no difference at all. The mills of the TV preachers continue to grind, and the poor continue to finance the rich, just as if the glittering temples and palaces of Las Vegas had been built by the money of those who won rather than those who lost.

I’m not sure on whom exactly Hitchens thinks Gortman exacted his revenge. I pity his marks as much as I pity him. Related to Hitchens’s point that the film made no difference, I was most interested in the evangelical’s reaction once Gortner’s true self was revealed. Unfortunately that isn’t in the film. The only info on Wikipedia is this: “At the time of the film’s release he generated considerable press, but the movie was never shown in theaters in the Southern United States, based on the fears of the distributor over the outrage it would cause in the Bible Belt.” I can’t find much else, even on Westlaw.

After he left the preaching circuit, he recorded an unsuccessful album and portrayed a series of minor characters in TV and the movies, including stints on Kojak, Fantasy Island, and The A-Team. After the 1995 entry on his IMDB page, the trail goes cold, and one of the top Google results for his name is a page titled “Dead or Alive? - Marjoe Gortner,” which doesn’t have any answers. If anyone has any information, I’d be curious to learn more. Here are some excerpts from the documentary: