Tammy Faye
Encyclopedia
Tamara Faye LaValley Bakker Messner (March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007) was an American
Christian singer
, evangelist
, entrepreneur
, author
, talk show
host, and television personality. She was married to televangelist, and later convicted felon
, Jim Bakker
(1961–1992). She co-hosted with him on The PTL Club
(1976–1987). She was a participant in the 2004 season of the reality show The Surreal Life
.
, to Pentecostal preachers Carl and Rachel Fairchild LaValley. Her parents were married in 1941, one year before Tammy Faye was born. Shortly after she was born, a painful divorce soured her mother against other ministers, alienating her from the church. After the divorce, Tammy Faye continued living in a strict atmosphere with her mother and brother. In 1948, when she was six, her mother married Fred Grover, who worked in paper mills. His salary increased their income, but the marriage also added six children to the household.
As a girl child in the 1950s, she helped her mother with household chores and babysat her younger siblings; but she was often spoiled by her favorite aunt, Virginia Fairchild, who was a retired department store manager. She attended her aunt's church in 1952.
When she was accompanied by a friend to the Assemblies of God
church, at age 10, she said she "felt the glow of God's
love and wanted to call herself upon the Lord." Her entire family gathered around her for celebrations, particularly Christmas
, which was her favorite holiday. In 1956, she started spending summers at Bible camp and was voted "Queen". Also in 1956, she attended Falls High School, where she sang in the choir
, and got an after-school job at Woolworth's. She didn't attend school dances, baseball games, or even movies, as her church did not allow it. Before she graduated in 1960, her mother suggested that Tammy Faye would become a minister.
when they were students at North Central Bible College
in Minneapolis, Minnesota
. Tammy Faye worked in a boutique for a time while Jim found work in a restaurant inside a department store in Minneapolis. They were married on April 1, 1961. The following year, they moved to South Carolina
, where they began their ministry.
They had two children, Tammy Sue (Sissy) Bakker Chapman (born 1970) and Jamie Charles (Jay) Bakker
(born 1975).
area via Portsmouth, Virginia
, where they were founding members of the 700 Club. While in Portsmouth, they were hosts of the popular children's show "Jim and Tammy". They then created a puppet ministry for children on Pat Robertson
's Christian Broadcasting Network
(CBN) from 1964 to 1973 and co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network
with personal friends Paul
and Jan Crouch in California
. Jim and Tammy founded the PTL Club (Praise The Lord) in the mid 1970s.
During the PTL shows, she provided a sentimental touch to stories and loved to sing. In a move that sharply distinguished her from other televangelists, she showed a more tolerant attitude when it came to homosexuality
, and she featured people suffering from AIDS
on PTL, urging her viewers to follow Christ and show sympathy and pray for the sick.
, who claims a forced sexual encounter with Jim Bakker
.
The revelations invited scrutiny of the Bakkers, and charges made about their opulent lifestyle, including media reports of an air-conditioned doghouse
at their Tega Cay, South Carolina
, lakefront parsonage as well as gold-plated bathroom fixtures, dominated newscasts in the 1980s. The Bakkers' home, owned by the ministry, was actually an older home built in the early 1970s, and it was a few miles away from Heritage USA
. Jim Bakker stated that the much-talked-about dog house was heated with an old heater to keep the dogs warm in the winter and the reported gold
-plated fixtures were actually brass
. The home was later sold by the ministry and burned to the ground not long thereafter. Jim Bakker wrote in his book I Was Wrong that he watched the home burn on live television while incarcerated.
The epilogue from the publishers of this book contains the following:
The Charlotte Observer ran exposes of PTL's finances and management practices. PTL went bankrupt after being taken over by controversial Lynchburg, Virginia
-based Baptist televangelist Jerry Falwell
, who offered to step in following the scandals in 1988. Charges surfaced that Falwell's interest in PTL and Heritage USA was solely an attempt to gain control of its profitable cable television network, something which Falwell was unsuccessful in establishing for his own ministry despite numerous requests to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) for permission to obtain a satellite license. Tammy Faye later forgave Falwell regarding these tactics before Falwell's death in 2007, two months before Tammy Faye's own death.
In 1992, while Bakker was still in prison she filed for divorce, saying in a letter to the New Covenant Church in Orlando, Florida
:
On October 3, 1993, she married Roe Messner
in Rancho Mirage, California
, after Messner divorced his own wife. They moved to the Charlotte suburb of Matthews, North Carolina
. Tammy and Roe were neighbors to Christian recording star and friend David L Cook.
Messner, who had a contracting business, Messner Enterprises, in the Andover, Kansas
, suburb of Wichita, Kansas
, had built much of Heritage USA as well as numerous other large churches and had been a family friend to the Bakkers throughout the PTL years.
Messner was the one who produced the money for the $265,000 payment to Hahn, later billing PTL for work never completed on the Jerusalem Amphitheater at Heritage USA
.
In the Bakkers' fraud trial, Messner testified for Bakker's defense saying that Falwell had sent Messner to the Bakker home in Palm Springs, California
, to make an offer to "keep quiet."
According to Messner's testimony, Tammy wrote the offer on her stationery, listing a $300,000-a-year lifetime salary for Jim, $100,000 a year for Tammy, a house, and a year's worth of free phone calls and health insurance. However, Messner said that Bakker wrote on it: "I'm not making any demands on PTL. I'm not asking for anything.". Falwell denied making any offer.
In the messy bankruptcy of PTL, Messner was listed as the single biggest creditor of PTL with an outstanding claim of $14 million. In court papers, the new operators accused Messner of $5.3 million in inflated or phony billings to PTL.
Messner filed for personal and corporate bankruptcy in 1990, saying he owed nearly $30 million to more than 300 creditors. He wound up being convicted of bankruptcy fraud. As he faced sentencing in 1996, he said that he could not afford to treat his prostate cancer because he lacked health insurance.
In July 2007, on more solid financial footing, the Messners relocated to a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri
, the Village of Loch Lloyd, Missouri
. Coincidentally, Jim Bakker had also moved to Missouri
(in 2003), 200 miles southeast of Loch Lloyd in Branson, Missouri
. Tammy Faye told Entertainment Tonight
they had moved to the "dream house" to be closer to Roe's children and grandchildren from his first marriage. The children still live in the Wichita
area.
In 1996 she wrote her autobiography, Tammy: Telling It My Way (ISBN 0679445153), and she co-hosted a TV talk show titled The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show with Jim J. Bullock.
She was the subject of a documentary
titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye (1999
) and a followup film titled Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2004
) from Lions Gate Entertainment
.
She appeared twice on The Drew Carey Show
in 1996 and 1999, playing the mother of character Mimi Bobeck (Kathy Kinney
), who was also known for wearing excessive amounts of makeup.
On September 11, 2003, she published a new autobiography, I Will Survive... and You Will, Too! (ISBN 1585422428), in which she described her battles with cancer and her life with Messner.
In 2005, she appeared in an infomercial
for alternative medicine promoter Kevin Trudeau
. On her site, Tammyfaye.com she credits green supplements as a helpful part of her initial colon cancer remission.
Despite her background in Christian fundamentalism, Tammy Faye became a gay icon
after her parting from PTL, appearing in Gay Pride
marches with such figures as Lady Bunny
and Bruce Vilanch
.
reality television
series The Surreal Life
. The show chronicled a twelve-day period wherein she, Ron Jeremy
, Vanilla Ice
, Traci Bingham
, Erik Estrada
and Trishelle Cannatella
lived together in a Los Angeles
house and were assigned various tasks and activities.
Together, the six put on a children's play and managed a restaurant for a day. During the taping, she forged close bonds with all of the other five house mates, many of whom came to look up to her as a mother figure and a spiritual inspiration.
She also attended a book signing
for her best-seller, I Will Survive... And You Will Too.
At the end of the show, Messner said she thought of Vanilla Ice and Trishelle Cannatella as children and could relate to them deeply because she had similar feelings and problems when she was their age. She described porn star Jeremy as "a nice man."
On March 19, 2004, Tammy Faye made an appearance on Larry King Live
and announced that she had inoperable lung cancer
and would soon begin chemotherapy. She continued receiving chemotherapy throughout mid-2004. On November 30, 2004, also on Larry King Live, she announced that she was cancer free once again. She described the details of her chemotherapy and continued to appear regularly on King's show. It was on his program again that she announced, on July 20, 2005, that her cancer had returned.
On March 13, 2006, she appeared again on Larry King Live and stated that she was continuing to suffer from lung cancer, which had reached stage 4
, and that she was continuing to receive treatment for it. She also mentioned having difficulty swallowing food, suffering from panic attack
s, and enduring substantial weight loss. As her health continued to worsen, a "Talk of the Town" article in the October 2, 2006, issue of The New Yorker
stated that she was dying in hospice care, and a December 10, 2006, article in Walter Scott's column in Parade
reported that her son Jay was "at a North Carolina hospice with his mom, [who is] gravely ill with colon cancer".
Tammy Faye was a guest by phone on CNN
's Larry King Live on December 15, 2006, and stated that she was receiving hospice care in her home. Tammy Faye appeared in her son Jay's documentary series One Punk Under God
, wherein she and Jay talked about her cancer treatments. In one episode, Tammy Faye required the use of oxygen in order to talk.
On May 8, 2007, she issued a statement on her website saying that chemo therepy had stopped, but urging her fans to continue to pray for her. The story was reported on NBC
's The Today Show on May 11, and a feature in which fans and well-wishers could post get-well messages to Tammy was added to her website. As of July 2007, over 228 pages of wishes had been received.
On July 19, 2007, Tammy Faye made another appearance on CNN's Larry King Live in what turned out to be her final interview (she died the following day, just hours after the broadcast). At the time, she said she weighed 65 pounds and was unable to eat solid food. Messner's husband would later say that he believed that she chose to do the interview to say a final goodbye to her followers. During the interview, Messner had this message:
, Kansas, where her ashes were interred. The ceremony was officiated by the Rev. Randy McCain, the pastor of Open Door Community Church in Sherwood
, Arkansas. She had frequently spoken about her medical problems, saying she hoped to be an inspiration to others. "Don't let fear rule your life," she said. "Live one day at a time, and never be afraid." She had written on her website in May that the doctors had stopped trying to treat the cancer. She died the day after the airing of her interview on Larry King Live
on CNN. According to CNN.com, the family requested that King officially report the news of her death on July 21, 2007.
titled The Gospel According to Tammy Faye opened at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and is currently being developed for a larger professional production. The show features songs by J. T. Buck
and a book by Fernando Dovalina. The musical is described as a fantasia
which takes a balanced and fair look at its subject. The impetus for the show was provided by a lengthy interview that Messner gave the authors in March 2005. The musical aired on August 2006 in Portland, Oregon
, and Hood River, Oregon
, it was presented on stage at Houston's Alley Theatre
at the end of July 2007 under the direction of Les R. Wood. Industry readings presented by the Columbia Gorge Repertory Company were held at the Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2007 the cast including Tony nominee Sally Mayes
and veteran Broadway performers William Youmans, Ken Land, Julie Foldesi, James T. Lane and Heather Parcells. The readings were directed by Mindy Cooper. Seth Farber provided musical direction.
Another musical following the life of Tammy Faye, titled Big Tent, debuted May 23, 2007 at Off-Broadway's New World Stages, in New York City
. The show features music and lyrics by Ben Cohn, Sean McDaniel, a book by Jeffery Self, and direction by Ryan J. Davis
. A star-studded concert of songs from the show opened February 18, 2008 at New York's Metropolitan Room.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Christian singer
Christian music
Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely across the world....
, evangelist
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
, entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host, and television personality. She was married to televangelist, and later convicted felon
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
, Jim Bakker
Jim Bakker
James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry...
(1961–1992). She co-hosted with him on The PTL Club
The PTL Club
The PTL Club , later called The Jim and Tammy Show, and in its last days PTL Today and Heritage Today, was a Christian television program first hosted by evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, which ran from 1974 to 1989...
(1976–1987). She was a participant in the 2004 season of the reality show The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life is a reality television series that sets a select group of past-their-prime celebrities and records them as they live together in Glen Campbell's former mansion in the Hollywood Hills for two weeks...
.
Early life
The eldest of eight children, Tammy Faye was born Tamara Faye LaValley in International Falls, MinnesotaInternational Falls, Minnesota
International Falls is a city in and the county seat of Koochiching County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 6,424 at the 2010 census....
, to Pentecostal preachers Carl and Rachel Fairchild LaValley. Her parents were married in 1941, one year before Tammy Faye was born. Shortly after she was born, a painful divorce soured her mother against other ministers, alienating her from the church. After the divorce, Tammy Faye continued living in a strict atmosphere with her mother and brother. In 1948, when she was six, her mother married Fred Grover, who worked in paper mills. His salary increased their income, but the marriage also added six children to the household.
As a girl child in the 1950s, she helped her mother with household chores and babysat her younger siblings; but she was often spoiled by her favorite aunt, Virginia Fairchild, who was a retired department store manager. She attended her aunt's church in 1952.
When she was accompanied by a friend to the Assemblies of God
Assemblies of God
The Assemblies of God , officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 140 autonomous but loosely-associated national groupings of churches which together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination...
church, at age 10, she said she "felt the glow of God's
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
love and wanted to call herself upon the Lord." Her entire family gathered around her for celebrations, particularly Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
, which was her favorite holiday. In 1956, she started spending summers at Bible camp and was voted "Queen". Also in 1956, she attended Falls High School, where she sang in the choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, and got an after-school job at Woolworth's. She didn't attend school dances, baseball games, or even movies, as her church did not allow it. Before she graduated in 1960, her mother suggested that Tammy Faye would become a minister.
Marriage to Jim Bakker
In 1960, she met Jim BakkerJim Bakker
James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry...
when they were students at North Central Bible College
North Central University
North Central University is a coeducational, undergraduate, primarily residential college owned and operated by 11 Assemblies of God districts of the upper Midwest. It is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA...
in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. Tammy Faye worked in a boutique for a time while Jim found work in a restaurant inside a department store in Minneapolis. They were married on April 1, 1961. The following year, they moved to South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, where they began their ministry.
They had two children, Tammy Sue (Sissy) Bakker Chapman (born 1970) and Jamie Charles (Jay) Bakker
Jay Bakker
Jamie Charles Bakker is an American Christian pastor and the son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. He ministers to Revolution Church, a church he founded in 1994 in Phoenix, Arizona with Kelli Miller and Mike Wall...
(born 1975).
PTL Club
Jim and Tammy Bakker had been involved with television from the time of their departure from Minneapolis until they moved to the CharlotteCharlotte metropolitan area
The Charlotte metropolitan area is a metropolitan area/region of North and South Carolina within and surrounding the city of Charlotte...
area via Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2010, the city had a total population of 95,535.The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard, is a historic and active U.S...
, where they were founding members of the 700 Club. While in Portsmouth, they were hosts of the popular children's show "Jim and Tammy". They then created a puppet ministry for children on Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
's Christian Broadcasting Network
Christian Broadcasting Network
The Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.-Background:...
(CBN) from 1964 to 1973 and co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network
Trinity Broadcasting Network
The Trinity Broadcasting Network is a major American Christian television network. TBN is based in Costa Mesa, California, with auxiliary studio facilities in Irving, Texas; Hendersonville, Tennessee; Gadsden, Alabama; Decatur, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; and New...
with personal friends Paul
Paul Crouch
Paul Franklin Crouch is a religious broadcaster and, along with his wife Jan, co-founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network .-Biography:...
and Jan Crouch in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Jim and Tammy founded the PTL Club (Praise The Lord) in the mid 1970s.
During the PTL shows, she provided a sentimental touch to stories and loved to sing. In a move that sharply distinguished her from other televangelists, she showed a more tolerant attitude when it came to homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, and she featured people suffering from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
on PTL, urging her viewers to follow Christ and show sympathy and pray for the sick.
PTL collapse
The Bakkers' control of PTL collapsed in 1987 after revelations that $287,000 had been paid from the organization to buy the silence of Jessica HahnJessica Hahn
Jessica Hahn is an American model and actress. She is best known for a sex scandal involving televangelist Jim Bakker while she was employed as a church secretary.-Jim Bakker scandal:...
, who claims a forced sexual encounter with Jim Bakker
Jim Bakker
James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister, and a former host of The PTL Club, a popular evangelical Christian television program.A sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry...
.
The revelations invited scrutiny of the Bakkers, and charges made about their opulent lifestyle, including media reports of an air-conditioned doghouse
Doghouse
A doghouse, known in British English as a kennel, is a small shed commonly built in the shape of a little house intended for a dog. It is a structure in which a dog is kept or can run into for shelter from the elements.-Architecture:...
at their Tega Cay, South Carolina
Tega Cay, South Carolina
Tega Cay is a planned city in York County, South Carolina, United States. The city is a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina and Rock Hill, South Carolina. The population was 4,044 at the 2000 census....
, lakefront parsonage as well as gold-plated bathroom fixtures, dominated newscasts in the 1980s. The Bakkers' home, owned by the ministry, was actually an older home built in the early 1970s, and it was a few miles away from Heritage USA
Heritage USA
Heritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
. Jim Bakker stated that the much-talked-about dog house was heated with an old heater to keep the dogs warm in the winter and the reported gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
-plated fixtures were actually brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
. The home was later sold by the ministry and burned to the ground not long thereafter. Jim Bakker wrote in his book I Was Wrong that he watched the home burn on live television while incarcerated.
The epilogue from the publishers of this book contains the following:
The Charlotte Observer ran exposes of PTL's finances and management practices. PTL went bankrupt after being taken over by controversial Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 75,568 as of 2010. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or "The Hill City." Lynchburg was the only major city in...
-based Baptist televangelist Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
, who offered to step in following the scandals in 1988. Charges surfaced that Falwell's interest in PTL and Heritage USA was solely an attempt to gain control of its profitable cable television network, something which Falwell was unsuccessful in establishing for his own ministry despite numerous requests to the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) for permission to obtain a satellite license. Tammy Faye later forgave Falwell regarding these tactics before Falwell's death in 2007, two months before Tammy Faye's own death.
Marriage to Roe Messner
Tammy stood by Bakker through the scandal, including several instances when she cried on camera. In 1989 Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison on 24 fraud and conspiracy counts.In 1992, while Bakker was still in prison she filed for divorce, saying in a letter to the New Covenant Church in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
:
On October 3, 1993, she married Roe Messner
Roe Messner
Ronald Roe Messner is an American building contractor who has built more than 1,700 churches, including several megachurches....
in Rancho Mirage, California
Rancho Mirage, California
Rancho Mirage is a resort city in Riverside County, California, United States. The population was 17,218 at the 2010 census, up from 13,249 at the 2000 census, but the seasonal population can exceed 20,000. In between Cathedral City and Palm Desert, it is one of the eight cities of the Coachella...
, after Messner divorced his own wife. They moved to the Charlotte suburb of Matthews, North Carolina
Matthews, North Carolina
Matthews is a large suburban town of Charlotte located in southeastern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The population was 27,198 according to the 2010 Census.- Geography :Matthews is located at ....
. Tammy and Roe were neighbors to Christian recording star and friend David L Cook.
Messner, who had a contracting business, Messner Enterprises, in the Andover, Kansas
Andover, Kansas
Andover is a city in Butler and Sedgwick counties in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,791. Located almost entirely in Butler County, it is part of the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, suburb of Wichita, Kansas
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
, had built much of Heritage USA as well as numerous other large churches and had been a family friend to the Bakkers throughout the PTL years.
Messner was the one who produced the money for the $265,000 payment to Hahn, later billing PTL for work never completed on the Jerusalem Amphitheater at Heritage USA
Heritage USA
Heritage USA was a Christian theme park, water park, and residential complex built in Fort Mill, South Carolina, USA, by PTL Club founders televangelist Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker Messner...
.
In the Bakkers' fraud trial, Messner testified for Bakker's defense saying that Falwell had sent Messner to the Bakker home in Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
, to make an offer to "keep quiet."
According to Messner's testimony, Tammy wrote the offer on her stationery, listing a $300,000-a-year lifetime salary for Jim, $100,000 a year for Tammy, a house, and a year's worth of free phone calls and health insurance. However, Messner said that Bakker wrote on it: "I'm not making any demands on PTL. I'm not asking for anything.". Falwell denied making any offer.
In the messy bankruptcy of PTL, Messner was listed as the single biggest creditor of PTL with an outstanding claim of $14 million. In court papers, the new operators accused Messner of $5.3 million in inflated or phony billings to PTL.
Messner filed for personal and corporate bankruptcy in 1990, saying he owed nearly $30 million to more than 300 creditors. He wound up being convicted of bankruptcy fraud. As he faced sentencing in 1996, he said that he could not afford to treat his prostate cancer because he lacked health insurance.
In July 2007, on more solid financial footing, the Messners relocated to a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, the Village of Loch Lloyd, Missouri
Loch Lloyd, Missouri
Loch Lloyd is a village in northwestern Cass County, Missouri, United States on the Kansas border in the Kansas City metropolitan area. It incorporated on 2003-09-03...
. Coincidentally, Jim Bakker had also moved to Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
(in 2003), 200 miles southeast of Loch Lloyd in Branson, Missouri
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
. Tammy Faye told Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid television entertainment television news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Linda Bell Blue is currently the program's executive producer...
they had moved to the "dream house" to be closer to Roe's children and grandchildren from his first marriage. The children still live in the Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
area.
Back in the public eye
As her second husband was jailed and she was first diagnosed with colon cancer, she re-entered the public eye in a series of books, movies and television appearances.In 1996 she wrote her autobiography, Tammy: Telling It My Way (ISBN 0679445153), and she co-hosted a TV talk show titled The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show with Jim J. Bullock.
She was the subject of a documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye (1999
1999 in film
The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...
) and a followup film titled Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2004
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
) from Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...
.
She appeared twice on The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show
The Drew Carey Show is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from 1995 to 2004. The show was set in Cleveland, Ohio, and revolved around the retail office and home life of "everyman" Drew Carey, a fictionalized version of the actor....
in 1996 and 1999, playing the mother of character Mimi Bobeck (Kathy Kinney
Kathy Kinney
Kathy Kinney is an American actress and comedian. She gained considerable popularity in the late 1990s for playing Mimi Bobeck, the outrageously made-up, flamboyantly vulgar, and vindictive nemesis of Drew Carey on the sitcom The Drew Carey Show...
), who was also known for wearing excessive amounts of makeup.
On September 11, 2003, she published a new autobiography, I Will Survive... and You Will, Too! (ISBN 1585422428), in which she described her battles with cancer and her life with Messner.
In 2005, she appeared in an infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
for alternative medicine promoter Kevin Trudeau
Kevin Trudeau
Kevin Mark Trudeau is an American author, radio personality, and infomercial salesman best known for promoting alternative medicine. A number of his television infomercials and several of his books, including Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, allege that both the U.S...
. On her site, Tammyfaye.com she credits green supplements as a helpful part of her initial colon cancer remission.
Despite her background in Christian fundamentalism, Tammy Faye became a gay icon
Gay icon
A gay icon is a public figure who is embraced by many within :lesbian, :gay, :bisexual and :transgender communities...
after her parting from PTL, appearing in Gay Pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
marches with such figures as Lady Bunny
Lady Bunny
The Lady Bunny is an American drag queen originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who has lived in New York since the 1980s. She is the founder of the annual Wigstock event and is well-known as a nightclub DJ, promoter and celebrity...
and Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch
Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor. He is a six-time Emmy Award-winner Vilanch is best known to the public for his four-year stint on Hollywood Squares, as a celebrity participant; in the entertainment industry he is best known as head writer for the show...
.
The Surreal Life
In early 2004, she appeared on the second season of the VH1VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
series The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life
The Surreal Life is a reality television series that sets a select group of past-their-prime celebrities and records them as they live together in Glen Campbell's former mansion in the Hollywood Hills for two weeks...
. The show chronicled a twelve-day period wherein she, Ron Jeremy
Ron Jeremy
Ronald Jeremy Hyatt , usually called Ron Jeremy, is an American pornographic actor. Nicknamed "The Hedgehog", he was ranked by AVN at number one in their "The 50 Top Porn Stars of All Time" list...
, Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice
Robert Matthew Van Winkle , best known by his stage name Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, extreme athlete and home improvement television personality...
, Traci Bingham
Traci Bingham
Traci Bingham is an American actress, model and television personality who is best known for playing Jordan Tate on the television series Baywatch between 1996 and 1998.-Personal life:...
, Erik Estrada
Erik Estrada
Henry Enrique "Erik" Estrada is an American police officer and actor, known for his co-starring lead role in the 1977–1983 United States police television series CHiPs...
and Trishelle Cannatella
Trishelle Cannatella
Trishelle Cannatella is an American reality TV contestant, Playboy model, and actress.-Early life:Cannatella was born on November 4, 1979, and raised in Cut Off, Louisiana. She is of French and Italian ancestry...
lived together in a Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
house and were assigned various tasks and activities.
Together, the six put on a children's play and managed a restaurant for a day. During the taping, she forged close bonds with all of the other five house mates, many of whom came to look up to her as a mother figure and a spiritual inspiration.
She also attended a book signing
Book signing
Book signing is the affixing of a signature to the title page or flyleaf of a book by its author. A book signing is an event, usually at a bookstore or library where an author sits and signs books for a period of time....
for her best-seller, I Will Survive... And You Will Too.
At the end of the show, Messner said she thought of Vanilla Ice and Trishelle Cannatella as children and could relate to them deeply because she had similar feelings and problems when she was their age. She described porn star Jeremy as "a nice man."
Cancer
Tammy Faye's 11-year battle with cancer was highly publicized. She was first diagnosed with colon cancer in March 1996, and the disease went into remission by the end of that year.On March 19, 2004, Tammy Faye made an appearance on Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
and announced that she had inoperable lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
and would soon begin chemotherapy. She continued receiving chemotherapy throughout mid-2004. On November 30, 2004, also on Larry King Live, she announced that she was cancer free once again. She described the details of her chemotherapy and continued to appear regularly on King's show. It was on his program again that she announced, on July 20, 2005, that her cancer had returned.
On March 13, 2006, she appeared again on Larry King Live and stated that she was continuing to suffer from lung cancer, which had reached stage 4
Cancer staging
The stage of a cancer is a description of the extent the cancer has spread. The stage often takes into account the size of a tumor, how deeply it has penetrated, whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many lymph nodes it has metastasized to , and whether it has spread to distant organs...
, and that she was continuing to receive treatment for it. She also mentioned having difficulty swallowing food, suffering from panic attack
Panic attack
Panic attacks are periods of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration. Panic attacks usually begin abruptly, reach a peak within 10 minutes, and subside over the next several hours...
s, and enduring substantial weight loss. As her health continued to worsen, a "Talk of the Town" article in the October 2, 2006, issue of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
stated that she was dying in hospice care, and a December 10, 2006, article in Walter Scott's column in Parade
Parade (magazine)
Parade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...
reported that her son Jay was "at a North Carolina hospice with his mom, [who is] gravely ill with colon cancer".
Tammy Faye was a guest by phone on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's Larry King Live on December 15, 2006, and stated that she was receiving hospice care in her home. Tammy Faye appeared in her son Jay's documentary series One Punk Under God
One Punk Under God
One Punk Under God is a 2006 original observational documentary that airs on the Sundance Channel, directed and produced by Jeremy Simmons. It focused on the life of Jay Bakker, only son of Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Messner , formerly evangelical ministers and hosts of The PTL Club...
, wherein she and Jay talked about her cancer treatments. In one episode, Tammy Faye required the use of oxygen in order to talk.
On May 8, 2007, she issued a statement on her website saying that chemo therepy had stopped, but urging her fans to continue to pray for her. The story was reported on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's The Today Show on May 11, and a feature in which fans and well-wishers could post get-well messages to Tammy was added to her website. As of July 2007, over 228 pages of wishes had been received.
On July 19, 2007, Tammy Faye made another appearance on CNN's Larry King Live in what turned out to be her final interview (she died the following day, just hours after the broadcast). At the time, she said she weighed 65 pounds and was unable to eat solid food. Messner's husband would later say that he believed that she chose to do the interview to say a final goodbye to her followers. During the interview, Messner had this message:
Death
On July 20, 2007, at 4 am, Messner died following an 11-year battle with cancer. What had started as colon cancer had spread to her lungs. She died in her home, said her publicist, Joe Spotts. A family service was held on the morning of July 21, 2007, in the Messner family plot in WaldronWaldron, Kansas
Waldron is a city in Harper County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11.-History:The ashes of evangelist Tammy Faye Messner were interred in the Messner family plot in Waldron in 2007.-Geography:...
, Kansas, where her ashes were interred. The ceremony was officiated by the Rev. Randy McCain, the pastor of Open Door Community Church in Sherwood
Sherwood, Arkansas
Sherwood is a city in Pulaski County, Arkansas, United States, and a suburb of Little Rock. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 29,523...
, Arkansas. She had frequently spoken about her medical problems, saying she hoped to be an inspiration to others. "Don't let fear rule your life," she said. "Live one day at a time, and never be afraid." She had written on her website in May that the doctors had stopped trying to treat the cancer. She died the day after the airing of her interview on Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
on CNN. According to CNN.com, the family requested that King officially report the news of her death on July 21, 2007.
Legacy
In June 2006, a stage musicalMusical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
titled The Gospel According to Tammy Faye opened at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and is currently being developed for a larger professional production. The show features songs by J. T. Buck
J. T. Buck
J. T. Buck is the Director of Arts for First Grace United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio. He is also a composer, lyricist, stage director, vocalist, and pianist....
and a book by Fernando Dovalina. The musical is described as a fantasia
Fantasia (music)
The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....
which takes a balanced and fair look at its subject. The impetus for the show was provided by a lengthy interview that Messner gave the authors in March 2005. The musical aired on August 2006 in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, and Hood River, Oregon
Hood River, Oregon
The city of Hood River is the seat of Hood River County, Oregon, United States. It is a port on the Columbia River, and is named for the nearby Hood River. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 5,831...
, it was presented on stage at Houston's Alley Theatre
Alley Theatre
The Alley Theatre is a Tony Award-winning indoor theatre in Downtown Houston, Texas, and hosts two stages. The "Hubbard" is the main stage with seating for 824; the more intimate "Neuhaus" seats 310. Nine towers and open-air terraces give the Alley Theatre a castle-like quality. Inside, a staircase...
at the end of July 2007 under the direction of Les R. Wood. Industry readings presented by the Columbia Gorge Repertory Company were held at the Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2007 the cast including Tony nominee Sally Mayes
Sally Mayes
-Biography:Born in Livingston, Texas, Mayes began her career as a rock and jazz singer in Houston. She made her Broadway debut in April 1989 as Winona Shook in Cy Coleman's Welcome to the Club. For her performance she won a Theatre World Award. This was followed by her appearance in the original...
and veteran Broadway performers William Youmans, Ken Land, Julie Foldesi, James T. Lane and Heather Parcells. The readings were directed by Mindy Cooper. Seth Farber provided musical direction.
Another musical following the life of Tammy Faye, titled Big Tent, debuted May 23, 2007 at Off-Broadway's New World Stages, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The show features music and lyrics by Ben Cohn, Sean McDaniel, a book by Jeffery Self, and direction by Ryan J. Davis
Ryan J. Davis
Ryan J. Davis is an American theater director, writer, political consultant, and progressive activist. In 2006, a musical he conceived, White Noise received positive reviews and was featured on Good Morning America and ABC Primetime Live...
. A star-studded concert of songs from the show opened February 18, 2008 at New York's Metropolitan Room.
External links
- Tammy Faye's Official Website and blog
- National Public Radio All Things Considered The Re-Invention of Tammy Faye: Former Christian Broadcasting Queen Has New Gay Following June 20, 2002 (Online article with audio of ATC story and video clip of film, The Eyes of Tammy Faye)
- Tammy Faye Messner Interview at Archive of American TelevisionArchive of American TelevisionThe Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....