Marjoe Gortner died on October 2, 2026, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 82. His wife, Susan Magestro, and his family confirmed the death to Variety. Born Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner on January 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California, he was placed on a revival stage before he was old enough to understand it. His name joined Mary and Joseph. His parents, Vernon and Marge Gortner, said he had received a vision from God. He later said that story was not true and that he had been trained to repeat it.
He was ordained as a Pentecostal minister at about four and, still lisping, performed a wedding for a newsreel. The family moved from town to town. He preached with dramatic gestures while donations came in. Crowds ranged from a few dozen people to several hundred, and the message, he later said, was often eternal damnation and a push toward repentance. By the time he was sixteen, he estimated the family had taken in about three million dollars. Shortly after that birthday, his father disappeared with the money.
Disillusioned, he left the ministry for entertainment. In 1971 he let filmmakers Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan follow what became his final revival tour. The cameras caught him explaining the techniques used to move a crowd and open wallets. The 1972 documentary Marjoe premiered at Cannes and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. He then recorded the album Bad, but Not Evil and signed with Universal. His first major screen role was in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the 1973 pilot for Kojak. He appeared in Earthquake, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, The Food of the Gods, Viva Knievel!, and Starcrash. On television he was seen in The A-Team, Fantasy Island, Airwolf, and Police Story, and on Falcon Crest as the corrupt psychic Vince Karlotti.
He later produced celebrity sports invitationals and Circus of the Stars specials that raised money for charity. Actor Ian Ziering called him a force of nature and said those events raised millions. Gortner married several times, including a 1970s marriage to actress Candy Clark, before marrying Magestro in Santa Fe in 2019. A boy put on a stage grew up to expose that stage, win an Oscar for telling the story, and build a second life as an actor, producer, and fundraiser.
