Marvin Pentz Gay Sr. (October 1, 1914 – October 10, 1998) was an American Pentecostal minister. He was the father of recording artists Marvin Gaye and Frankie Gaye and gained notoriety after shooting and killing his son Marvin Jr. on April 1, 1984, following an argument at their home.
Gay was born the third of 13 surviving 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. He had a troubled childhood, where his physically abusive father would often beat his mother, him, and his siblings.
According to Gay's wife, Alberta, Gay's family life consisted of constant violence, involving domestic abuse and shootings. "Gays against Gays", she told author David Ritz. When Gay was still a child, he and his mother joined a Pentecostal church, the House of God. Gay moved to Washington, D.C., in his late teens to pursue a career as a minister of a House of God church there.
While in Washington, Gay met his future wife, Alberta Cooper, whom he married on July 2, 1935. They bought a small house in southeastern Washington, D.C., at 1617 First Street SW, which was only a few blocks away from the Anacostia River. The street was nicknamed "Simple City" for its being "half-city, half-country". Alberta already had a son named Michael, but Gay sent Michael to live with his sister-in-law, Pearl.
Over a year after marrying, they had their first child, a daughter they named Jeanne, in December 1936. On April 2, 1939, their first son, Marvin Pentz Jr., was born. Son Frankie (born Frances) and daughter Zeola followed shortly afterwards. In 1970, Gay fathered a son named Antwaun Carey with another woman, as a result of one of his extramarital affairs.
On one of his first missions as preacher at a church in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Gay impressed the congregation, and his church later made him Bishop. According to his son Marvin, his father was known as a healer. 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.
According to relatives, the elder Marvin Gay was a passable self-taught piano player. He bought a secondhand piano at a rummage sale and coached his son in piano lessons, which the younger Marvin Gay learned by ear, and it was one of the few stable times in the father and son's relationship. Marvin Sr. nurtured Marvin Jr.'s musical talents, so long as he stuck with liturgical music.
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 1950s. Gay left the House of God altogether in the mid-1950s, after not being named Chief Apostle of the church, and, according to his son, "that's when my father lost his healing powers".
Marriage, family life, and relationship with Marvin Gaye
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 on Sunday, accusing Christians of violating God's commandment to keep the "Lord's Day", which he contended was Saturday.
According to Gay's daughter Jeanne, he was someone who never "spared the rod, he was very, very strict", in reference to the saying "spare the rod, spoil the child". Gay also would question his children on Biblical passages, administering beatings if they answered wrong. All four of Gay's children had problems with bed wetting, which led to more beatings.
Gay administered most of his harshest punishments on Marvin Jr. According to Marvin's sister, Jeanne, from the age of seven well into his teenage years, Marvin's life consisted of "brutal whippings", since Gay would strike him for any shortcoming, including putting his hairbrush in the wrong place or coming home from school a minute late. Marvin later stated, "It wasn't simply that my father beat me, though that was bad enough. By the time I was twelve, there wasn't an inch on my body that hadn't been bruised and beaten by him." He also said that "living with Father was like living with a king, an all-cruel, changeable, cruel and all-powerful king". Gaye 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."
Alberta Gay later stated that her husband hated Marvin Jr., 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.
Conversely, Gay said this about Marvin:
It was important that I have a male child. A namesake is what I wanted. The day he was born, I felt he was destined for greatness. I thanked God for the blessing of his life. I thanked God for Marvin. I knew he was a special child.
According to Jeanne Gay, her father never held a job for longer than three years. Gay worked briefly in the post office and at Western Union, but a back injury laid him off early and when explaining why he left the latter job, Gay stated to Ritz that people were working on the "day of the Sabbath". Eventually, Gay withdrew from social life, developing alcoholism and practicing cross-dressing, which humiliated his son.
Due to this difficulty, Gay's wife provided for most of the family's income working as a domestic worker. As Marvin grew older, his relationship with his father worsened and Gay often threw his son out for allegations of misbehavior. Neighbors of the Gay family, as well as other students at school, according to Frankie Gay, often teased them for their name, along with their father's manner and religion. Gay's sons often found themselves having to confront the neighbors, vocally defending their father and their religion.