At the height of his influence in the 1960s and '70s, Billy Graham was a man about whom nearly every adult in America had an opinion. He was everywhereâhis weeklong evangelistic crusades packed stadiums around the globe; innumerable books and articles carried his byline; his face appeared on the covers of the newsweeklies. The Graham media empire included a magazine, a radio show, and a television program.America's most famous preacher died on February 21 at the age of 99. Younger Americans who don't remember the crusades and his other public addresses may wonder how on earth an evangelistâthe word itself sounds obsoleteâcould have achieved such vast renown in a secularized country. That it isn't quite so secularized as it might be is in large measure the work of Billy Graham.In the late 1930s, Graham, who'd grown up outside Charlotte, North Carolina, was a student at a tiny Bible college in Florida. He practiced preaching alone in front of mirrors and standing atop tree stumps in the forest. Soon he was preaching in large churches, so captivating were his oratory and his message. By 1944, he had his own radio program in Chicago. In the fall of 1947, he held his first independent revivalâseveral nights of preaching meant to draw the unbelieving to Christ and Christians to greater faithfulness. Before one of those revivals in Los Angeles in 1949, the media magnate William Randolph Hearst decreed that reporters at the Los Angeles Examiner should puff Graham. So began the evangelist's rapid rise to American sainthood.