Suddenly, ‘Rainbow Man’ Is Out of Sight : Manhunt: Zealot who became ubiquitous sight bearing religious messages at sports events is prime suspect in stink-bomb incidents. He recently bought a gun and may have lost his faith.

ABC sports producer Chet Forte was amused at first when he saw the tutti-frutti wig and the “Jesus Saves” T-shirt move onto the television monitors of his control booth. But as the baseball season wore on, it became a constant source of irritation.

“He got to be a terrific distraction,” Forte said. “He would station himself behind home plate and our cameras would view over the pitcher’s shoulder and it was very annoying seeing this guy waving the signs and all.”

The man on camera was Rollen Frederick Stewart, a gallivanting religious zealot with a band of disciples who is wanted by police in connection with a rash of stink-bomb attacks across Orange County.

Stewart’s wild, publicity-seeking antics immortalized on national TV have prompted Santa Ana police to broaden their hunt for the “born-again” Christian with an uncanny knack for shouldering his way onto sports programs as part of his self-ordained ministry.

Authorities said Wednesday they are contacting law enforcement agencies across the country and major television networks in an attempt to track down Stewart, who recently purchased a handgun. He was still at large Wednesday night after authorities obtained a felony arrest warrant for him Tuesday.

Known as the “Rainbow Man,” Stewart, 46, is suspected of setting off foul-smelling bombs at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, a Christian bookstore in that city, the Trinity Broadcasting Network in Tustin, and in the lobby of the Orange County Register newspaper in Santa Ana.

Police believe Stewart has been living out of his car over the past few years, said Maureen Haacker, a spokeswoman for the Santa Ana department. He had a previous address in Little Rock, Ark., but in 1988 he moved to California where he lived with his wife, Margaret Elsie Stewart, in Bellflower, Norwalk and, most recently, Downey.

The childless couple, now separated, according to court records, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Friends and associates said Stewart supported himself and his world travel from the sale of a ranch in Washington state, where he raised black Angus cattle in the 1970s. When his money ran out, he relied on donations from religious groups before PGA golfer Larry Gene Nelson, a “born-again” Christian, and other professional golfers bankrolled him and his activities.

With their support and that of others, Stewart has traveled thousands of miles every year to nationally televised sporting events, usually showing up with his trademark T-shirts emblazoned with “Jesus Saves,” “Repent” or “John 3:16.”

“I remember this guy,” said David Nagle, an ESPN spokesman in Connecticut. “I remember seeing him at the ’81 U.S. Open. Some people asked him, ‘What do you do for a living?’ And he said, ‘I’m doing it.’ They asked how he got around to all these events and he said, ‘I fly to them.’ ”

Forte, who produced and directed ABC’s “Monday Night Football” when it began in 1970, regarded Stewart’s scene-stealing antics as more of a nuisance rather than something harmful.

“We didn’t treat him as anybody that was dangerous at all, just this crazy act,” Forte said. “And it was an act. After a while I didn’t show him (on screen) any longer.”

Behind Stewart’s talent for forcing his way onto network sports programs was an ambition to be an actor, he told Golf Digest magazine in a 1982 feature story about him. At the time, Stewart was showing up regularly at professional golf tournaments.

“Five years ago, I was just another actor trying to make a buck, and I realized that by wearing the wig and acting crazy I could make a lot of money promoting products,” he was quoted as saying. “I was living on my ranch . . . and my life revolved around sex and drugs. I wasn’t happy, though, and one night I had a religious experience and was born again as a Christian.”

Helping with his conversion to Christ was Baptist minister Charles R. Taylor of Anaheim, who is publisher of Bible Prophecy News. Taylor described the 6-foot, 1-inch, 150-pound Stewart as essentially “nonviolent and harmless.”

Stewart’s “born-again” experience occurred, Taylor said, after hearing one of his television ministry programs. Stewart was in Southern California at the time attending the 1980 Super Bowl.

“He was interested in getting the Gospel out any way he could,” Taylor said. “He wore the T-shirts and the wig as a lark. He would go to the games and use them to attract attention.”

Taylor said he eventually baptized Stewart when they both traveled to Israel in 1981. Since then, Stewart dedicated his life to spreading the word of God and embraced the biblical passage of John 3:16, which he later had printed on most of his T-shirts.

In 1980, Stewart took his show to the Soviet Union for the Moscow Summer Olympics. According to a July 22, 1980, article in the New York Daily News, Stewart “confounded Soviet security forces by showing up in front of the Press Center wearing his multicolored wig which looks as if it had been woven from strands of the rainbow.”

Since then, Stewart has attended the 1984 Winter Olympics in Yugoslavia, Super Bowls, the World Series, NBA playoffs, the 1984 Republican National Convention and most major golf tournaments, authorities said.

But Stewart’s globe-trotting has left a trail of run-ins with law enforcement and security officers at major sporting and cultural events, including the American Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles two years ago.

He was arrested on public disturbance charges after he supposedly tried to throw skunk glands at the audience. At the time, he said, he wanted to show the public that “God thinks this stinks.” The disposition of his case was not known.

At the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Ga., in April, Stewart was detained for questioning by Richmond County sheriff’s deputies after an air horn, a “loud buzzer” and several smoke bombs went off, disturbing professional golfer Jack Nicklaus and others.

At the golf course, deputies found a black, Afro-type wig and copies of a newspaper article from the Register newspaper detailing stink-bomb incidents in Orange County. Stewart was released after tournament officials declined to prosecute.

Broome said that near one of the sound devices, Richmond deputies recovered a sign saying, “The trumpet and siren mean no rapture . . . a skunk was released to show you there is no God, no more John 3:16.”

Times correspondent Ted Johnson contributed to this article.