Robert Tilton - Biography and The Early Years

Biography and The Early Years

According to Tilton's autobiographical materials, he had a conversion experience to Christianity in 1969 and began his ministry in 1974, taking his new family (including wife Martha "Marte" Phillips, whom he married in 1968) on the road to, in his words, "preach this gospel of Jesus." Tilton preached to small congregations and revivals throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Tilton and his family settled in Dallas, Texas, and built a small church in Farmers Branch, Texas, called the "Word Of Faith Family Church" in 1976. The church also started a local television program then known as Daystar (not related to the Daystar Television Network, though both were started in the Dallas area). Tilton's announcer on Daystar was Miami radio personality and voice-over artist Dave Mitchell who was based in Dallas at the time.

The church was growing steadily, but Daystar failed to expand beyond the Dallas area until Tilton went to Hawaii—his self-described version of Jesus's forty days in the wilderness—and spent time fishing, drinking, and watching an increasingly popular new form of television programming: the late-night infomercial.

Tilton was particularly influenced by Dave Del Dotto, a real estate promoter who produced hour-long infomercials showing his glamorous life in Hawaii (which he constantly stressed anyone could achieve just by following the principles set up in his many "get rich quick" books) as well as "interviews" with students who were brought out to his Hawaiian villa for said interviews, specifically for their on-camera testimonials about the success in life they were now enjoying thanks to his teachings. Upon his return from Hawaii in 1981, Tilton, with the help of a US$1.3M loan from Dallas banker Herman Beebe, revamped Daystar into an hour-long "religious infomercial" with the title Success-N-Life.