Rex Humbard, pioneer TV evangelist, dies: Cathedral of Tomorrow preacher

Rex Humbard, an early and successful televangelist, whose Cathedral of Tomorrow services were carried by as many as 2,000 stations in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, died September 21 in a South Florida hospital near his home in Lantana. He was 88.

The son of Pentecostal ministers, he went from church revival ministries to a large nondenominational church in Akron, Ohio. Among Humbard’s devoted TV followers was Elvis Presley. When Presley died in 1977, Humbard spoke at his funeral. But the televangelist’s program and ministry faltered in the 1980s amid internal disputes, government charges of securities violations and financial difficulties. He moved his family ministry to Florida in 1983.