Aimee in LA

In 1918—preaching revival meetings all along the way—she drove from New York to Los Angeles with her mother and daughter. Arriving in a broken-down car with only $100 in her pocket, Aimee Semple McPherson soon took the town by storm to become the most flamboyant, most publicized Christian evangelist of her time.   

She held her first Los Angeles revival meeting at Victoria Hall, a 1,000-seat auditorium. When her weekly sermons attracted capacity crowds there, she relocated to the 3,500-seat Temple Auditorium on Pershing Square. A media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, McPherson pioneered the use of radio’s mass media broadcasting to reach wider audiences for religious services, and appeals for donations

Angelus Temple, the 5,300 seat capacity mega-church she built opposite Echo Park, was dedicated January 1, 1923. During the Temple’s dedication ceremonies, Aimee announced she had founded Foursquare Church, based on a vision she experienced during a 1922 sermon in Oakland. Foursquare Church was an evangelical, Pentecostal Christian denomination, although by then her beliefs and preaching had moved away from the more extreme elements of her religious upbringing—such as such as faith healing at public services—to become interdenominational. Indeed, in 1922 the Pentecostal Evangel, the official publication of the Assemblies of God, published an article titled "Is Mrs. McPherson Pentecostal?" in which they claimed McPherson had compromised her teachings in order to secure mainstream respectability. No matter; enrollment in Angeles Temple grew to over 10,000, advertised as the largest single Christian congregation in the world.

McPherson had other detractors, who insisted that the once widowed, twice divorced evangelist “wasn’t really all that attractive”; a woman who hid a too-broad body and thick ankles beneath long-sleeved, flowing white gowns that reached from her neckline to the floor. But none could deny the power of her vibrant, far-reaching voice in the days before microphones, or her robust physical vitality and personal magnetism. Likewise, her devotion to charitable causes was exemplary. Creating an organization to provide for physical as well as spiritual needs, she mobilized church members to get involved in charity and social work. Humanitarian relief for a Japanese disaster, jobs for men released from prisons, and baby clothing for improvised mothers sewn by a “sisterhood” of members, were a few of her church’s beneficiaries.

By early 1926, McPherson was considered one of the most charismatic and influential women of her time; however, her month-long disappearance in May-June 1926 irrevocably damaged that perception. On May 18, 1926, she disappeared from Venice Beach, California. She reappeared in Mexico five weeks later, claiming she had escaped from kidnappers. Allegations arose that it was a self-engineered publicity stunt, a hoax designed to conceal a tryst with a lover. A media frenzy ensued, lasting through the long grand jury investigations that followed. Finally, on January 10, 1927, the Los Angeles District Attorney dropped all charges against McPherson and associated parties.

Afterward, McPherson continued her ministry, although she fell out of press favor. The media, which had once celebrated her professional accomplishments, focused instead on difficulties in her personal life, simultaneously ignoring the fact that up to 10% of the Los Angeles population still held active Temple membership. In 1932 she married actor/musician David Hutton, but divorced him in 1934 after learning that the content of his European cabaret act was damaging the reputation of her Foursquare Church … and herself.

Aimee Semple McPherson died September 27, 1944, in Oakland, where she had gone to conduct a series of revivals. The autopsy revealed a heart attack, probably brought on by an overdose of the sleeping pills she had been taking for various health problems. Enjoying a fame in her lifetime that equaled those of the most legendary names of her era, her life story was later exploited by the same film industry she had manipulated for publicity purposes, appearing in newsreels alongside Mary Pickford and other luminaries.

McPherson has been the subject of, or inspiration for, numerous books, plays, and films. Among many are the 1976 television film The Disappearance of Aimee starring Faye Dunaway and Bette Davis; and the 2012 biographical Broadway musical Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson. Novelists, too, modeled characters on Aimee: Sharon Falconer in Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, and Big Sister in Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust, are just two examples.   

Aimee Semple McPherson lives on in spirit, and her Angelus Temple still stands.