The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye

Gay Goes To Washington

In 1934, Marvin Sr. moved to Washington, D.C., as a House of God preacher. There he met Alberta Cooper. Born near Rocky Mount, N.C., she had been shipped north to avoid a hometown scandal when she turned up pregnant.

Marvin Gay married Alberta in July 1935, but he refused to raise her love child, and the infant was turned over to a sister.

Marvin and Alberta had four children: Jeanne, in 1937; Marvin Jr., on April 2, 1939; Frankie, in 1942, and Zeola, known as Sweetsie, in 1945.

Marvin Sr. led a storefront church congregation, although the faith’s tiny following could not support its preacher. The Gay family lived in subsidized housing and survived on Alberta’s income as a maid.

In 1950, Marvin Sr. was a candidate for Chief Apostle of the House of God. When the job went to another man, Gay abandoned the church.

He worked sporadically part-time as a postal clerk and for Western Union in Washington, but he would never hold another full-time job. Jeanne Gay estimated her father worked just three years cumulatively after leaving the church.

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1. Setting The Stage
2. Motown's Lover Man
3. Tangled Roots
4. Gay Goes To Washington
5. Nightmare Childhood
6. Marvin Sr. "Enjoying the Whole Thing"
7. Music & the Military
8. Marquees & Moonglows
9. Hitsville, USA
10. The Top
11. The Superego
12. Let's Get It On
13. "He Wanted To Suffer"
14. The Influence Of Narcotics
15. The World Closes In
16. To The Beach
17. To Europe
18. Sexual Healing
19. Increasingly Bizarre Behavior
20. Flying Home
21. "If He Touches Me I’ll Kill Him"
22. The Final Fight
23. The Postmortem
24. Conclusion
25. Photo Gallery
26. Bibliography