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Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (generally known as Marjoe Gortner; born January 14, 1944 in Long Beach, California) is a controversial former evangelist preacher and actor. He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him at age four to be ordained as a preacher, due to his extraordinary speaking ability; he was the youngest known in that position. As a young man, he preached on the revival circuit and brought celebrity to the revival movement. He became a celebrity during the 1970s when he starred in ''Marjoe'' (1972), a behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. This won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. This documentary is now noted as one of the most vehement criticisms of Pentecostal praxis.〔 ==Early life== Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner was born in 1944 in Long Beach, California, into a long evangelical heritage. The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the biblical names "Mary" and "Joseph".〔〔 His father Vernon was a third-generation Christian evangelical minister who preached at revivals.〔 His mother, who has been labelled as "exuberant", was the person who introduced him as a preacher and is notable for his success as a child.〔 Vernon noticed his son's talent for mimicry and his fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed that the boy had received a vision from God during a bath, and started preaching. Marjoe later said this was a fictional story that his parents forced him to repeat. He claimed they compelled him to do this by using mock-drowning episodes; they did not beat him as they did not want to leave bruises that might be noticed during his many public appearances. They trained him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. When he was four, his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony attended by the press, including photographers from ''Life'' and Paramount studios.〔〔 Until his teenage years, Gortner and his parents traveled throughout the United States holding revival meetings,〔 and by 1951 his younger brother Vernoe had been incorporated into the act.〔 As well as teaching Marjoe scriptural passages, his parents also taught him several money-raising tactics, including the sale of supposedly "holy" articles at revivals. He would promise that such items could be used to heal the sick and dying. By the time he was sixteen, his family had amassed what he later estimated to be three million dollars. Shortly after Gortner's sixteenth birthday, his father absconded with the money. A disillusioned Marjoe left his mother for San Francisco. In the years that followed, Marjoe took a break from preaching and grew resentful of his parents and bitter over the childhood they had forced upon him. At age 20, Marjoe considered suing his parents, yet this never actually happened. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Marjoe Gortner」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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