Marvin Gay, Sr.

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Marvin Gay, Sr.
Born Marvin Pentz Gay
(1914-10-01)October 1, 1914
Jessamine County, Kentucky
Died October 10, 1998(1998-10-10) (aged 84)
Culver City, California
Occupation Minister
Spouse(s) Alberta Gay (née Cooper)
(m. 1935–1984; divorced)
Children Jeanne Gay (b. 1937)
Marvin Gaye (1939–1984)
Frankie Gaye (1941–2001)
Zeola "Sweetsie" Gaye (b. 1945)
Antwaun Carey Gay (b. 1970)
Parents George Gay (1891–1971)
Mamie Gay (1891–1981)

The Reverend Marvin Pentz Gay Sr. (October 1, 1914 – October 10, 1998) was an American minister of the House of God. He was the father of American recording artist Marvin Gaye and gained notoriety after shooting and killing him on April 1, 1984 following an argument at their Los Angeles home.

Early life

Marvin Gay was born as one of fifteen children to George and Mamie Gay on October 1, 1914 on a farm along Catnip Hill Pike in Jessamine County, Kentucky and was raised in Lexington.[1][2] According to Gay's wife, Alberta, Gay's family life consisted constantly of violence involving accounts of domestic abuse and shootings. "Gays against Gays", she told author David Ritz.[3] When Gay was still a child, he joined his mother into the Pentecostal church sect, the House of God.[3] Gay moved to Washington, D.C. in his late teens to pursue a career as a minister of a House of God church there.[4]

It was while in Washington that Gay met his future wife, Alberta Cooper, whom he'd marry on July 2, 1935.[4] The couple bought a small house at southwest Washington at 1617 First Street, which was only a few blocks away from the Anacostia River.[5] The street would be nicknamed "Simple City" for it being "half-city, half-country".[4] Two years after marrying, they had their first child, a daughter they named Jeanne. On April 2, 1939, their first son, Marvin Pentz, Jr. was born. Son Frankie (born Frances) and daughter Zeola followed, shortly afterwards. Gay, Sr. would later father a child with another woman named Antwaun.[6]

Ministry work

On one of his first missions as preacher at a church in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Gay impressed the congregation there so much with his sermons that his church later made him Bishop.[7] According to his son Marvin, his father was known as a healer.[4] Gay eventually settled as a minister of a local House of God church. When his son was around four or five, his father brought him to church congregations and revivals to sing for audiences.[8][9] According to Marvin Gaye's relatives, Gaye's father coached him in piano lessons, which Gaye learned by ear, it was one of the few times in which father and son's relationship wasn't so troubling.[10]

However, by the late 1940s, Gay had left the House of God to join another sect called the House of the Living God, but soon returned to the House of God to head its Board of Apostles in the early fifties.[10] Gay left the House of God in the mid-fifties after he wasn't named Chief Apostle of the church.[10] According to his son, "that's when my father lost his healing powers".[10]

Personal life

In most accounts, Gay was described as a strict and sometimes overbearing father to his four children. According to his children, Gay would make them observe an extended Sabbath, which was every Saturday. Gay was against the Christian tradition of attending church Sunday, accusing them of going against observing God on "Lord's Day", which he contended was Saturdays.[11] According to Gay's daughter Jeanne, Gay was someone who never "spared the rod, he was very, very strict" in reference to the saying "spare the rod, spoil the child".[12] Gay also would question his children on Biblical passages, administering whippings if they answered wrong.[8][13] Gay's children also suffered from bed wetting, which led to more beatings.[14]

Gay administered most of his harshest punishments on Marvin, Jr. According to Marvin's sister, Jeanne, between the age of seven well into his teenage years, Marvin's life consisted of "brutal whippings".[15] Marvin would state later, "living with Father was like living with a king, an all-cruel, changeable, cruel and all-powerful king".[15] He further stated to David Ritz, "if it wasn't for Mother, who was always there to console me and praise me for my singing, I think I would have been one of those child suicides you read about in the papers."[15] Alberta Gay later stated that her husband hated Marvin, as she told David Ritz in 1979:

“ My husband never wanted Marvin, and he never liked him. He used to say he didn't think he was really his child. I told him that was nonsense. He knew Marvin was his. But for some reason, he didn't love Marvin, and what's worse, he didn't want me to love Marvin either. Marvin wasn't very old before he understood that. ”
[4]

According to Jeanne Gay, her father never held a job for longer than three years.[16] Gay worked briefly in the post office and the Western Union.[17] When explaining why he left the latter job, Gay stated to Ritz that people were working on the "day of the Sabbath".[17] Eventually, Gay withdrew from social life, developing an addiction to alcohol and was involved in cross-dressing, which humiliated his son, who spied on his father dressing in his mother's clothes at twelve.[18][19] Due to this difficulty, Gay's wife provided for most of the family's income working as a domestic worker.[17] As Marvin grew older, his relationship with his father worsened and Gay often threw his son out for allegations of misbehavior.[20] Following Marvin's musical career beginnings, he refused to be in the same room with his father for a number of years. This decision led to Marvin adding an "e" to his final name, which, it was stated, was done to quiet any rumors of his own sexuality and to add more distance from his father.[21]

By 1968, however, after Gaye had found musical stardom in Motown, Gaye extended an olive branch, giving his father a Cadillac as a present, but Gaye said his father's response was not affecting.[22] Four years later, Marvin reunited with his parents in D.C. after the city honored Gaye with a day in his honor; a day Marvin later said that day he felt he had made his father "proud".[23][24] In 1974, dressed in a female wig and clothing, Gay appeared on his son's Midnight Special episode. In 1975, Marvin gave up a residence at the West Adams district of Los Angeles to his parents after moving them to California. By the early 1980s, Gay's marriage to Alberta had deteriorated. According to his wife in 1984, the couple hadn't shared the same bed in nearly ten years, with Gay and Alberta sleeping in separate bedrooms.[2]

The murder of Marvin Gaye

Main article: Death of Marvin Gaye

In October 1983, after months in D.C., Gay returned to the West Adams home located at Gramercy Place.[25] Gay often told his daughter Jeanne that if Marvin ever touched him, he'd "kill him".[26][27] On Christmas Day 1983, Marvin gave his father an unregistered .38 Smith & Wesson caliber pistol to protect him from intruders and probable murderers after Marvin, heavily addicted to cocaine, felt someone was seriously plotting to kill him.[28] Gaye also had the guns because he felt "protected".[28]

Around 11:00 am on April 1, 1984, Gay began arguing with Alberta over a missing insurance policy document; the argument had started the previous night.[11] After Gay was heard yelling from downstairs, his son, dressed in his maroon robe, shouted downstairs if he wanted to talk to his mother to do it in person.[29] When Gay initially refused, Marvin threatened him to not enter his room, according to interviews from Alberta Gay, the only other witness in the murder. When Gay did enter, his son, angry, despondent and high on drugs, shoved his father to the hallway, then hit him.[29] The fight continued in Gay's bedroom where Marvin reportedly struck his father and kicked him.[29] Alberta eventually convinced Marvin to leave the room.[29]

At approximately 11:38, minutes after returning to the room, Gay Sr. came back to the bedroom with the .38 pistol and shot his son in the heart.[2] The bullet penetrated Marvin's vital organs, including his heart. Gay then walked forward and shot him a second time in the shoulder at point-blank range.[2] According to his daughter-in-law, Irene, Gay hid the gun in his bedroom pillow and later retrieved it for police.[30] Gay then went outside and sat on the front porch and awaited his arrest, which came after discovering Marvin's body and confirmation that Gay had shot his son.[31] Marvin Gaye, Jr.'s body was later taken to California Hospital Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:01 pm PST.[31]

During his first police interview, Gay would tell cops that he didn't mean to shoot him, but that he had been scared that he would be hurt and only shot him in self-defense.[32] When the police asked him if he loved his son, Gay softly told them, "let's say I didn't dislike him."[32] When the police later told Gay that his son had died from his shots, he reportedly sobbed and wept uncontrollably before he was taken to prison and was promptly charged with first-degree murder for his son's death.[32]

Aftermath and death

After being taken to the Los Angeles County Jail, Gay was held on a $100,000 bond.[32] The bond was eventually lessened to $30,000, and Gay's estranged wife Alberta posted the bond via a bondsman.[33] Aware of Gay's failing health, doctors examined him in May and discovered a benign tumor on the side of his brain.[34] The tumor would later play a factor in preliminary hearings of the trial against him, with his lawyers stating that the tumor might have played a part in Gay shooting his son. However, judges in the case argued that Gay was competent enough to stand trial and that he knew what he had done.[34] After results of Gaye's autopsy showed that he had traces of cocaine and PCP in his system and pictures of Gay showing injuries taken after he was brought into custody, possibly from his final fight with his son, Judge Gordon Ringer agreed to let Gay enter a plea bargain. Gay pleaded no contest for a charge of voluntary manslaughter on September 20, 1984.[35]

During the sentencing hearing two months later on November 20, Gay was allowed to talk. In tears and struggling to come up with words, Gay, 70, told the court:

If I could bring him back, I would. I was afraid of him. I thought I was going to get hurt. I didn't know what was going to happen. I'm really sorry for everything that happened. I loved him. I wish he could step through this door right now. I'm paying the price now.[36][37]

Following this, Gay was given a six-year suspended sentence and five years probation for the murder. During this time, Alberta Gay had filed for divorce after forty-nine years of marriage.[33] Gay eventually returned briefly to the Gramercy Place.[33] Health issues, however, forced Gay to move to a nursing home, first in Inglewood around 1986, and in the final years of his life, to a nursing home in Culver City, California, where he died of pneumonia on October 10, 1998, nine days after his 84th birthday.[38]

References

  1. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 3.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye". Retrieved June 27, 2012. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ritz 1991, pp. 5.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Ritz 1991, pp. 6.
  5. ↑ Gaye 2003, pp. 4.
  6. ↑ "Gaye's second wife calls play 'completely and utterly exploitative'". February 16, 2013. Retrieved October 13, 2013. 
  7. ↑ Glatt 2011, p. 218.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Ritz 1991, pp. 14.
  9. ↑ Gaye 2003, pp. 8.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Ritz 1991, pp. 15.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Ritz 1991, p. 332.
  12. ↑ What's Going On: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye, 2006
  13. ↑ Gaye 2003, pp. 6.
  14. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 12.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Ritz 1991, pp. 13.
  16. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 20.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Ritz 1991, pp. 19.
  18. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 17.
  19. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 18.
  20. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 25.
  21. ↑ Jet 1985, pp. 17.
  22. ↑ Glatt 2011, p. 226.
  23. ↑ Glatt 2011, p. 228.
  24. ↑ Ritz 1991, p. 162.
  25. ↑ Ritz 1991, pp. 322-325.
  26. ↑ Ebony 1985, pp. 108.
  27. ↑ Jet 1984, pp. 18.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Jet 1985, pp. 102.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 29.3 Ritz 1991, p. 333.
  30. ↑ Final 24: Marvin Gaye, Discovery Channel, 2006
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Ritz 1991, p. 334.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 32.3 Ritz 1991, p. 337.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 Ritz 1991, p. 338.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 The Montreal Gazette 1984, p. 60.
  35. ↑ "AROUND THE NATION; No-Contest Plea In Death of Marvin Gaye". The New York Times. September 21, 1984. 
  36. ↑ "The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye". Retrieved June 18, 2012. 
  37. ↑ Glatt 2011, p. 239.
  38. ↑ "BBC News: ENTERTAINMENT - Marvin Gaye's father and killer dies". BBC.co.uk. 25 October 1998. Retrieved December 8, 2012. 

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