Marjoe Gortner, the former Pentecostal child evangelist whose startling on-camera confessions became the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary "Marjoe," has died. He was 82. According to statements from his family reported by Variety, he died of complications from congestive heart failure on Friday, October 2, 2026, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His wife, Susan Magestro, described him as having lived "an extraordinary life, shaped by his imagination and rare gift for bringing people together."

Gortner was born Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner on January 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California. His name is widely reported as a blend of the biblical Mary and Joseph. His evangelical parents, Vernon and Marge Gortner, presented him to the public as a child preacher. They had him ordained at age 4, and in 1949 he performed a wedding ceremony before newsreel cameras, making him the youngest known ordained minister in the United States.

For the next decade, the young preacher traveled the country leading revival meetings, delivering theatrical sermons and altar calls while his family collected the offerings. Gortner later estimated the family took in roughly $3 million before he was 16 years old -- tens of millions of dollars in today's money. He said his father abandoned the family and took much of the money when he was in his late teens.

By his own account, Gortner never believed what he preached. In the documentary, he said he could not recall ever genuinely believing in God, and he described having been trained by his parents to mimic the cadence, gestures, and emotional intensity of revival preaching. The parents' story that he had received a vision from God was, he later said, invented -- something he was coached to repeat.

After a break from the circuit, he returned to revivalism as a young adult purely to make a living, despite no longer holding the faith. He later said he studied performers like the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger to sharpen his stagecraft. Then, in his late 20s, he invited filmmakers Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan to follow what became his final revival tour. On camera, he calmly explained the techniques revivalists used to stir crowds and open wallets -- how to fake speaking in tongues, how to whip an audience into an emotional frenzy, and how to count the day's collection with a smile in a quiet hotel room afterward.

The resulting film, "Marjoe" (1972), premiered at Cannes and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It became one of the most damning records of how parts of the independent Pentecostal revival circuit operated as a highly profitable enterprise, regardless of what its participants believed.

After the documentary, Gortner traded the pulpit for Hollywood. He signed with Universal and built a decades-long acting career, appearing in the Kojak pilot "The Marcus-Nelson Murders," the disaster film "Earthquake" (1974), "When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?" (1979), the television series "Falcon Crest," and many others. He married five times.

His life remains a cautionary tale -- about the exploitation of children, the manipulation of sincere believers, and what happens when ministry becomes a marketplace. The documentary's co-producer, Sarah Kernochan, was among the first to announce his passing.