Scandal dogged celebrity evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson after ‘kidnapping’

Ninety years ago today one of the first celebrity disapearances occured, leaving questions that remain unanswered to this day.

Aimee Semple McPherson confers with her defence attorneys at a Grand Jury hearing in 1926.

It is no easy feat for a celebrity to disappear, given the likelihood a fan will recognise them, but it does happen. Sinead O’Connor was found this week after being missing for more than 24 hours in Chicago. Coincidentally, one of the biggest celebrity disappearances took place 90 years ago today, when Canadian-born evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished from a beach in California.

She was found a month later in a Mexican town, but questions linger to this day about her claims she was kidnapped and rumours of a scandal that had been covered up followed her for years after.

McPherson was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy on a small farm in Canada in 1890. Both parents were devoutly religious, her father a Methodist and her mother a Salvationist.

Aimee played religious games as a child, pretending to preach sermons and be a Salvation Army officer, but as a teen she discovered the joys of movies, dances and socialising.

She came to national attention at age 15 when she sent a letter to the Canadian newspaper Family Herald and Weekly Star questioning why public schools taught evolution, which she said undermined Christianity.

Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s at the height of her fame.

She became a lifelong campaigner against the teaching of evolution.

In 1907 she met Irish Pentecostal preacher Robert James Semple. Enamoured of his preaching, she married him in 1908 in a Salvation Army ceremony. While on a missionary tour of Asia, Robert contracted dysentery and died in Hong Kong. Aimee gave birth to a daughter in 1910.

She began working with her mother in the Salvation Army and in 1912 married Harold McPherson, an accountant. A life-changing moment came when she fell ill in 1914 and a vision urged her to preach.

After her first official sermon in 1915 her following grew quickly. Semple McPherson whipped audiences into a frenzy of excitement with her preaching, which included speaking in tongues and spiritual healing.

Her mother became her manager and they toured the country but Harold grew tired of the lifestyle and filed for divorce in 1918.

Aimee established her base in Los Angeles where the Angelus Temple was built in 1923 at a cost of $1.5 million, from contributions from parishioners.

It became the headquarters of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a giant evangelism corporation.

In the 1920s Semple McPherson was like a movie star, mass audiences came to her increasingly theatrical sermons, which often featured elaborate sets and special effects.

She pioneered the use of radio for sermons and was also a presence on film, counting Charlie Chaplin as a personal friend. She also dedicated time to charity work and made overseas tours, beginning with Australia in 1922.

On May 18, 1926, after going for a swim at Ocean Park Beach, near Venice Beach, Semple McPherson disappeared. She later claimed three people had approached her asking
her to pray for a sick child in their car, but they grabbed her and kept her captive in a cabin.

The evangelist said they intended demanding a ransom, but while the kidnappers were out she escaped and made her way across the desert to the Mexican town of Agua Prieta. She was found there 32 days after she had gone missing and was taken back to the US.

From the beginning people doubted her story. Rumours spread that she had secretly snuck away with a married former employee Kenneth Ormiston, to stay at a seaside cottage. But at a grand jury hearing into McPherson’s disappearance Ormiston revealed he had been staying with a woman named Elizabeth Tovey. The charges were dropped but the scandal lingered.

Aimee married David Hutton in 1931 and various lawsuits, including one with her mother, dogged her in the ’30s. In the ’40s she found ways to reconcile the pacifism of her church’s charter with helping out with the war effort. She died in 1944 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

CELEBRITY LOST AND FOUND

Author Agatha Christie: Went missing in 1926. Her abandoned car was found, a search launched, and she was found 11 days later at a Harrogate hotel.

Actress Margot Kidder: Went missing near her California home in 1996. She was found four days later in a neighbour’s yard. She had become disoriented and paranoid after refusing to take medication for bipolar syndrome.

Rapper J-Kwon: Reported missing by his record label in February 2004. A month later he contacted the record label to say he was fine. He had taken “some time out” and was not aware people were looking for him

Originally published as Scandal dogged celebrity evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson after ‘kidnapping’