Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner (born January 14, 1944) is an American former evangelist preacher and actor.
He first gained public attention during the late 1940s when his parents arranged for him to be ordained as a preacher at age four due to his extraordinary speaking ability, making him the youngest known in that position to this day.
[2] Gortner had an acting career from the 1970s to the 1990s, which included a main role in the space opera film Starcrash (1978) and guest spots on several TV series, and also released a musical studio album titled Bad but Not Evil in 1972.
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.
[4][8][b] Until his teenage years, Gortner and his parents traveled throughout the United States holding revival meetings,[9] and by 1951 his younger brother Vernoe had been incorporated into the act.
When approached by documentarians Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan, he agreed to let their film crew follow him throughout 1971 on a final tour of revival meetings in California, Texas, and Michigan.
[5] He began his acting career with a featured role in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, the 1973 pilot for the Kojak TV series.
Gortner portrayed the psychopathic, hostage-taking drug dealer in Milton Katselas's 1979 screen adaptation of Mark Medoff's play When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?.
He starred in a number of B-movies including Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976),[16] The Food of the Gods (1976),[4] and Starcrash (1978).
[19] He also played a terrorist preacher in a second-season episode of Airwolf, and appeared on Falcon Crest as corrupt psychic-cum-medium "Vince Karlotti" (1986–87).
[23] Marjoe Married Susan Magestro in 1999 - present In 2007, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival commissioned actor and writer Brian Osborne to write a one-man play about Gortner.