A Crusade on Camera : Photographer Has Documented 30 Years of Billy Graham

Whenever Billy Graham has preached at massive rallies or met foreign heads of state, the same wiry photographer has dogged his footsteps--documenting for more than 30 years the ministry of this century’s most successful evangelist and friend of U.S. presidents.

Russ Busby of Northridge started working for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. in 1956 and became the chief crusade photographer in the early 1960s.

Along the way, the amiable Busby has taken the Christmas card family photos at the Graham mountain home in Montreat, N.C., adding informal shots of the Graham kids.

Now, “Uncle Russ” is pictorially recording a major transition in the $88-million Graham empire.

One of those Graham kids, Franklin, now 43, two months ago was named first vice president in the evangelistic organization with the right to succeed should his 77-year-old father, who has Parkinson’s disease, become incapacitated. The decision ended years of speculation about a probable successor.

Busby, an active 65 with no plans to retire, has already shot four of Franklin’s evangelistic crusades and says he has a rapport with the younger Graham.

“He often delights in saying things that might shock a religiously reserved person, just as I do,” Busby said this week during a rare stretch of time at home, catching up with work in his Burbank office.

Busby recently returned from Bosnia, where before Christmas he photographed the distribution to children of thousands of gift-filled shoe boxes donated by Americans to Franklin’s independent ministry called Samaritan’s Purse.

“Riding in a van driven by Franklin for that long allowed me to see that he has the same kind of vision, perception and compassion for people that his father has,” Busby said.

Everyone in the Graham organization, Franklin included, is quick to note that Franklin’s “succession” of his father has not taken place yet.

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T. W. Wilson, the executive assistant and longtime friend to the elder Graham, said, “Billy reminds his son, ‘I’m not dead yet.’ And I don’t think anybody is ever going to take Billy Graham’s place,” said Wilson, referring to the wide respect gained by the Baptist preacher.

“There will never be another Billy Graham,” echoed religion professor Randall Balmer of Barnard College in New York, who produced a 1993 PBS documentary on the famed evangelist.

“He came to prominence at a propitious time in history when all kinds of new media technologies were emerging, and he had the talent to exploit them brilliantly,” Balmer said.

Graham first came to national attention in 1949 when his Los Angeles tent crusade was covered extensively by publisher William Randolph Hearst’s papers and celebrities professed their conversions.

Franklin Graham may be carving out his own niche, aided by public-relations experts.

In late October, as he began his first joint crusade with his father in Saskatoon, Canada, Franklin’s autobiography was published: “Rebel With a Cause: Finally Comfortable Being Graham.” The book recalls Franklin’s smoking, drinking and fighting and his expulsion from college before turning his life around at age 22.

“I believe we can see consultants cultivating the image of a rebellious kid, even though the last vestige of rebellion occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago,” Balmer said.

At the same time, Balmer added, Franklin’s love for riding motorcycles, flying his airplane and collecting guns (including a much-told story of his machine-gunning down a tree with more than 700 rounds of ammunition) may strike a chord with contemporaries who are filling stadiums in the all-male, evangelical Promise Keepers movement.

Yet, it is not as if Franklin was under a family mandate to follow his father.

Russ Busby said that when he told Billy and his wife, Ruth, how impressed he had been with their son’s preaching before a crowd of 20,000 in Raleigh, N.C., in September 1994, Franklin’s mother smiled and said, “All we ever asked God to do is to help him get his life straightened out.”

Yet, Franklin’s mature presence in the pulpit has come none too soon.

Billy Graham fainted in the midst of a Canadian crusade in June and was hospitalized in December after falling in the shower of his hotel room in New York. As a result of injuries in that fall, Franklin will substitute for his father in March at three-day crusades at Sydney and Brisbane, Australia.

“Between his age and Parkinson’s, Billy has slowed up his schedule quite a bit,” Busby said. “But when he speaks, he sounds OK--he hasn’t lost the authority in his voice.”

At a four-day crusade four months ago in Sacramento, the elder Graham averaged nearly 30,000 people a night at the 17,000-seat Arco Arena and three overflow sites--record crowds for any event at that arena. Billy Graham still plans to do a June crusade in Minneapolis and a September one in Charlotte, N.C., officials said.

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Busby, who is 80% finished with a photo-filled book on Billy’s ministry, said that he couldn’t ask for a more cooperative subject.

“He is so congenial that he will do almost anything we need for a picture,” Busby said. The photographer said he had read that President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to approve every White House photo of himself before it was released. “Good night, I’m glad that never happened to me,” Busby said.

Busby made it clear that he agrees with the evangelical beliefs and mission of the Graham association, although he is low-key in expressing his faith.

“If he were a professional in the field, he could make much more than we pay him,” said Wilson. “He’s among the most valuable members of our team, and certainly the most unsung.”