Shared from the 12/4/2017 American News eEdition

Biopic captures pastor’s deeds

From 10 to 96, Harold Salem has led a full life

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The Rev. Harold Salem talks about an upcoming film about his life. Work on the biopic should be done later this month. American News Photo by Kelda J.L. Pharris

Online

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Find this story at AberdeenNews.com for a video of the Rev. Harold Salem sharing his thoughts on his upcoming biopic.

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Bill Edwards views a portion of the Harold Salem biopic. Edwards is the executive producer of the film that follows the life of the pastor from age 10 to the present day. American News Photo by Kelda J.L. Pharris

The Rev. Harold Salem has come to be the consummate, comforting TV preacher, reaching many more folks than most of his peers can from their pulpits.

“I can preach to a camera. I preach like a house of fire and there’s nobody there,” he said with a laugh.

He was was referencing the “Christian Worship Hour” and the sermons he gives to a crew and camera only for TV and satellite broadcast. It was mid-November and he was in his office in southeast Aberdeen.

The thing is, when Salem says, “there’s nobody there,” in reality, his potential audience is in the millions.

How the young farm boy who grew up tending sheep became a preacher to the international masses is the subject of an upcoming film. The biopic captures his formidable years, as well as his time as a preacher. The film has a working title of “Love People,” and is projected to be released yet this month.

Far reach

Salem’s regular “Christian Worship Hour” telecast is broadcast into 1.6 billion households worldwide, Bill Edwards said. Edwards is the “Christian Worship Hour” executive board member in charge of finance.

Salem became the face of First Baptist Church for more than a half-century after he was installed in 1958 upon leaving Belle Fourche, where he was born and first preached. His sermons at First Baptist were the birthplace of the “Christian Worship Hour,” which was first broadcast on TV in 1979.

Salem is at his large, tidy desk. He answers a lot of mail, makes a lot of phone calls. He’s joined by Edwards, who championed the Salem film and is its executive producer.

The two men have a long history. Salem has been Edwards’s only pastor for 60 years, since he was 7. Salem baptized Edwards and officiated his marriage. And Salem’s done the same for Edwards’s children.

“It’s true it was my brainchild,” Edwards said of the movie. “I just felt (Salem’s life) should be a book or movie or something. This is a film that’s timeless. We can use it now, we can use it when pastor’s gone. We can use it in the future as a hallmark of the ‘Christian Worship Hour.’”

Edwards is particular in using the term film.

“It might be termed a documentary, but it’s much lighter than that. It really is like a movie, a film,” he said.

Early scenes were shot on the Belle Fourche land on which Salem grew up. Some of his relatives play the pastor at different ages, while the 96-yearold Salem plays himself at more distinguished ages.

“Pastor plays himself in current days, and we dolled him up a bit to look 20 years younger. He’s got a grandson that looks a tremendous amount like he did when he was 10,” Edwards said.

Jesse Salem plays the pastor at age 10. A great-grandson, Joshua Becker of Arizona, plays Salem in his 30s and 40s. Grandson Noah Salem of Aberdeen was cast as Harold Salem in his teens.

Memories of

mother, wife

The film begins with 10-year-old Salem and his mother Clara Salem, played by Karen Edwards, Bill’s wife. Her look and demeanor fit the role extremely well, as the two men tell it.

“She had braided hair and all, just like my mother. The clothes we got from the community theater, dressed in the way we did in those days,” Harold Salem said. “She was the big thing in my life, had the most profound effect on me. She taught me to love Jesus. She was always talking about him and singing.

“She’d put us in bed, read a Bible story and give us a kiss — that’s my earliest recollections of my mother,” Salem said.

Clara Salem was born on Christmas Eve 1890. Harold Salem’s wife, Beulah, died at 3:45 p.m. Christmas Eve 2005. His partner of 59 years also gets a segment in the film.

Salem mentions Beulah during nearly every visit. This time, he audibly wonders what she’s thinking of him “up there” and he hopes she doesn’t give him too much grief for any way he’s acted on Earth, though he said he likely will deserve it. He’s comforted by the idea that she’s waiting for him.

Until he sees her again, Salem will keep getting to work before the sun does, six days a week. And he’ll continue to chuckle when others ask if he’s going to retire, as they have been for 30-some years.

Then he’ll follow up with his trademark joke: “I would be 97, but I was sick a year.”

Follow @Kelda_aan on Twitter.

See Christian Worship Hour

Television: 10 a.m. Sundays on KSFY. Online: christianworshiphour.com Twitter: @CWHPastorSalem Facebook: Christian Worship Hour

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