File under "The Good Die Young": Politically minded televangelist Pat Robertson, 93, has died. He was known for pioneering the idea of a Christian (read right-wing "evangelical") talk show and television network CBN although initially his foray into the talk show genre was actually fronted by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, who had been employed by Robertson back in the early 1960s. Jim and Tammy became so popular, they ended up setting up their own talk show and eventual television network via satellite. Meanwhile, Pat, always wanting to be in front of the camera and not just running the show behind the scenes, started a show called The 700 Club, I believe named for the first donors to his operation.
Robertson, unlike Bakker, was born into wealth and power. His father, A. Willis Robertson, was a Democratic senator from Virginia. Coming from that background, the younger Robertson had a privileged life, attending hoity-toity private schools, attending and graduating from Washington and Lee University, and eventually earning a law degree from Yale. However, Robertson flunked the New York bar exam and never again attempted to become a licensed attorney. He decided religion was a much more lucrative racket than law, and with far fewer headaches.
Along the way, he met Adelia "Dede" Elmer, a fashion model studying for her master's degree in nursing, and someone his family did not approve of, and married her in 1954. As we know from his failed campaign for president in 1988, it was a "shotgun" marriage. The pair ended up having four children including Gordon, who later became head of CBN. Dede died last year.
Like a lot of televangelists with a lot of money to burn, Pat founded his own university, CBN (later Regent) University, aimed at graduate studies. He continued to be a major player in GOP politics with founding the Christian Coalition though he would be critical every now and then on certain stands the party took.
Pat's real name was Marion Gordon Robertson.
Robertson died early today. Snip:
--Marion Gordon Robertson was born on March 22, 1930, in Lexington, Va., to parents who were first cousins and the offspring of Baptist preachers. His youth was shaped by his proximity to Washington policymakers, and by his father’s insistence that he learn the value of work and responsibility through backbreaking farm labor.
His mother, the former Gladys Churchill Willis, imbued him with religious faith, and with a sense of pride in a genealogy that included two presidents (William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison). She told him God had a plan for him.
He was called Pat because, when he was a baby, his older brother and only sibling, A. Willis Robertson Jr., had patted him on his cheeks, saying, “Pat, pat, pat.”--
Pat's life is proof of the saying: "It isn't what you know but YOU you know that matters."
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