Marjoe Gortner Dead: ‘Falcon Crest,’ ‘Earthquake’ Actor, Child Evangelist Was 82

Marjoe Gortner, who achieved fame as a child evangelist before pivoting to an acting career that included roles in the 1974 film Earthquake and the 1980s primetime soap Falcon Crest, died October 2 from heart complications in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 82.

His death was announced by his family.

Before launching his career as a film and TV actor, Gortner was the subject and willing participant in the groundbreaking, Oscar-winning 1972 documentary Marjoe. The film chronicled Gortner’s youth as a Pentecostal preacher in the American South and exposed the deceptive practices used to bilk believers out of their money. Directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan, Marjoe won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Charismatic, handsome and crowned with a mop of curly dark-blond hair, Gortner springboarded from his appearance in the documentary to a prolific acting career that included roles in 15 feature films and more than 20 TV series. Among his more notable credits, he starred in the 1979 film adaptation of Mark Medoff’s play When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? as a troubled Vietnam veteran who torments a diner full of people and recurred as corrupt psychic Vince Karlotti in 17 episodes of Falcon Crest during the 1986-87 season.

Born Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner on January 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California, his family included evangelical preachers and grifters, and he began preaching at age 4 after his parents noted his precocious public speaking skills. Known on the revival circuit simply as Marjoe — a portmaneau of “Mary” and “Joseph” — Gortner later would accuse his parents of forcing him to deliver the sermons, which included fabricated accounts of visions and miracles, on fear of death.

Gortner would later estimate that he’d earned his family more than $3 million by the age of 16, a fortune he said eventually was stolen by his preacher father Vernon Gortner.

Gortner, who by his late teens had privately renounced the grifting life, returned to evangelism in his 20s and in 1971 invited Smith and Kernochan to document what he said would be his final revival tour and expose the methods used by himself and other evangelists to dupe people for financial gain.

Buoyed by the success of the documentary and the kudos he received for his presence in it — New York Times critic Vincent Canby described the film as a “feature-length screen test” — Gortner soon was a regular presence on TV. He guested on such talk shows as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show and The Merv Griffin Show and scored an acting gig in the 1973 TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders that served as a pilot episode for Kojak.

Other roles — many capitalizing on Gortner’s grifting preacher persona — continued through the 1970s, including appearances on Medical Center and Barnaby Jones as well as TV movies Pray for the Wildcats and The Gun and the Pulpit.

His breakthrough acting project came in 1974 with a prominent role as the chief villain in Mark Robson’s disaster epic Earthquake. He played a store manager-turned-murderous National Guardsman who stalks the character played by Victoria Principal. While critics hated the film, the public — attracted at least in part by the it being the first film to use the much-hyped “Sensurround” sound system that caused cinema seats to shake and vibrate — made it a box office success.

Principal remembered him in a Facebook post Tuesday. “We met in 1973 while we were making Earthquake,” she writes. “He was complicated, generous & kind. It’s because of Marjoe that I discovered the freedom of moving out of Hollywood to Malibu. I hope he is at peace now.”

With the success of Earthquake and in addition to Red Ryder, Gortner found steady work in such ’70s films as the sci-fi Food of the Gods, Acapulco Gold, Viva Knievel! and Starcrash. Increasingly in the ’80s, he found TV work including episodes of Fantasy Island, The A-Team, T.J. Hooker, Hotel, Airwolf and, most notably, Falcon Crest. For one of his final credits — 1995’s Wild Bill starring Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok — he once again took the role of a preacher.

Gortner was married five times, including a brief 1978-79 union with American Graffiti actor Candy Clark, whom he had met while they filmed When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?

He is survived by wife Susan Magestro.