"It is a marvelous series that should be seen and re-seen in the homes of believers and non-believers."
Review by:
Dr. Ted Baehr, Movie Guide

Billy Graham was born on November 7, 1918, on a sprawling dairy farm outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, one year to the day after the Bolshevik Revolution that launched the Soviet Communist empire and just four days before the armistice that ended World War One. The oldest of four children, Billy Graham=s childhood was like a page from a Norman Rockwell painting. By the age of eleven, he had developed a passion for reading, devouring biographies and Tarzan novels. He dreamed of becoming a big league baseball player, but it was not to happen. Attending an evangelistic service conducted by an itinerant evangelist named Mordecai Ham, Billy Graham responded to an invitation to make Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior. It changed him forever. Ultimately he felt a call to the ministry.

After a stint at Bob Jones University and the Florida Bible Institute, Billy enrolled in Wheaton College, where he met his wife to be, Ruth Bell. They were married on August 13, 1943. From 1943 to 1945, the young Graham pastored a small Baptist church in Western Springs, Illinois, but he spent as much of his time speaking at rallies for the newly formed AYouth For Christ@ movement and hosting a weekly popular weekly radio program. As World War II progressed, Billy accepted an army commission as a second lieutenant, but a serious case of the mumps eventually led to his release from the army.

In Los Angeles, in September, 1949, Billy was preaching at a Youth For Christ crusade when he came to the attention of the newspaper mogul, William Randolph Hearst, who ordered his newspapers to feature the young evangelist. Overnight he was front page news, never leaving the public spotlight again, becoming America=s most well-known and respected religious leader. He shaped much of the modern evangelical movement in the United States and built new bridges between Protestant and Catholic streams of the Christian faith. He awakened the born-again Christian movement to its potential for influence in the public sector, and personally influenced the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. He was briefly tempted by offers of public office, but was deeply disturbed by what he considered the betrayal of the national trust by President Richard Nixon.

The hallmark of Billy Graham's life and influence was his moral and ethical integrity that was above reproach and won over many of his skeptics and enemies. He became unofficial pastor to the nation and the friend and confident to every American president since Harry Truman. Yet, he never strayed from his personal sense of inadequacy or his reliance on God.

Great Souls producer / director Tom Ivy directed the television programs for Billy Graham for more than seven years, and observed the consistent warmth and graciousness that Billy Graham extended toward everyone he met, regardless of their station or importance. The relationship was both a treasured friendship and a model for living that was to influence the director's own life.

©2006 American Trademark Pictures