Tammy Faye Messner

Tammy Faye Messner
Messner in 2004
Born Tamara Faye LaValley
(1942-03-07)March 7, 1942
International Falls, Minnesota, U.S.
Died July 20, 2007(2007-07-20) (aged 65)
Loch Lloyd, Missouri, U.S.
Occupation
  • Evangelist
  • singer
  • entrepreneur
  • author
  • television personality
Years active 1962–2007
Spouse(s)
Children
Website tammyfaye.com

Tamara Faye "Tammy" Messner (née LaValley; March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007), formerly Tammy Faye Bakker, was an American Christian singer, evangelist, entrepreneur, author, talk show host, and television personality. She initially gained notoriety for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program she co-founded with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. Prior to founding The PTL Club, they had hosted their own puppet show series for local programming in Minnesota in the early 1970s, and Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.

Messner would garner significant publicity when Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club. After divorcing Bakker in 1992, she remarried to Roe Messner. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, of which she suffered intermittently for over a decade before dying of the disease in 2007.

Over the course of her career, Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for her moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream Evangelists, particularly her acceptance of the LGBT community and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.[1][2]

Biography

1942–1959: Early life

The eldest of eight children, Tammy Faye was born Tamara Faye LaValley in International Falls, Minnesota, to Pentecostal preachers Rachel Minnie (née Fairchild) and Carl Oliver LaValley.

Her parents were married in 1941. Shortly after she was born, a painful divorce soured her mother against other ministers,[3] alienating her from the church.

1960–1973: Marriage to Jim Bakker; early work

In 1960, she met Jim Bakker while they were students at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[4] 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 together, initially traveling around the United States; Bakker preached, while Messner sang songs and played the accordion.[5] In 1970, she gave birth to her daughter, Tammy Sue "Sissy" Bakker, and in 1975, gave birth to a son, Jamie Charles Bakker.

Bakker and Messner had been involved with television from the time of their departure from Minneapolis until they moved to the Charlotte area via Portsmouth, Virginia, where they were founding members of The 700 Club.[6][5] 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), which ran from 1964 to 1973.[6]

1974–1987: The PTL Club

Messner co-founded (with Bakker) The PTL Club (Praise The Lord) in 1974, a televangelist Christian news program that they initially hosted in an abandoned furniture store in Charlotte.[6] The series mixed "glitzy entertainment with down-home family values" and preached a "'prosperity gospel' which put a divine seal of approval on both the growing affluence of American evangelicals and the showy lifestyles of their television ministers."[6] The PTL Club soon grew into its own network and a corporate enterprise within a year of its founding, generating $120 million annually in the 1970s.[6] In 1978, Messner and Bakker used $200 million of PTL funds to build Heritage USA, a Christian retreat and theme park that, at the time, ranked alongside Disney World and Disneyland as one of the most popular theme parks in the United States.[6]

Throughout the series, Messner provided a sentimental and emotive touch to stories,[5] and also often sang Christian songs.[6] She was also noted for her candid discussion of topics considered taboo amongst many of her Evangelist peers, ranging from penile implants to acceptance and compassion for the LGBT community.[6]

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s, Messner emotionally interviewed Steven Pieters, a gay Christian minister with AIDS on "Tammy's House Party," a segment of The PTL Club, during which they discussed his sexuality, coming out, diagnosis with AIDS, and the death of his partner.[7] During the program, Messner emotionally addressed her viewership, saying: "How sad that we as Christians, who are to be the salt of the earth, we who are supposed to be able to love everyone, are afraid so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not go up and put our arm around them and tell them that we care."[7] Throughout the AIDS epidemic, Messner advocated for viewers of The PTL Club to follow Christ and show compassion and pray for the ill,[8] and also invited drug addicts onto the show to interview them about substance abuse.[6]

Messner's friend, the Reverend Mel White, commented on her presence on The PTL Club:

Her fans were people who grew up in a very fundamentalist tradition, not being able to wear make-up, or dance, or go out in public. So here comes Tammy, with her dyed hair and make-up, her ebullient spirit and outspoken ways with both men and women. She talked about sex, and flirted with Jimmy. She took on the caricature of an obedient wife, and blasted it. You have never seen Pat Robertson's wife, or Jerry Falwell's wife. They stay at home, doing what those wives do.[6]

1988–2002: Collapse of The PTL Club and aftermath

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 Hahn,[9] who claims Jim Bakker raped her.[10] In his 1997 book, I Was Wrong, Bakker disputed Hahn's account, claiming that he was "set up" and that the sex was consensual.[11] The revelations invited scrutiny of the Bakkers, and charges made about their opulent lives, 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. When asked about her income, Messner told reporters in 1986: "We don't get what Johnny Carson makes, and we work a lot harder than him."[12] The couple's Tega Cay home was later sold by the ministry and burned to the ground not long thereafter. Bakker wrote in his book I Was Wrong that he watched the home burn on live television while incarcerated. The Charlotte Observer subsequently ran exposés of PTL's finances and management practices. PTL went bankrupt after being taken over by Lynchburg, Virginia-based Baptist televangelist Jerry Falwell, who offered to step in following the scandals in 1988.[13]

Messner 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: "For years I have been pretending that everything is all right, when in fact I hurt all the time...I cannot pretend anymore."[14]

On October 3, 1993, she married property developer Roe Messner in Rancho Mirage, California, after he 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. Roe, who had a contracting business, Messner Enterprises in Andover, 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. Roe 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.[9] In the Bakkers' fraud trial, Roe 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."

In 1996, Roe was convicted of bankruptcy fraud, having claimed to have owed nearly $30 million to more than 300 creditors in 1990. As he faced sentencing in 1996, he said he could not afford to treat his prostate cancer because he lacked health insurance.[15] He was sentenced to and served 27 months in prison.[5]

The same year, Messner published her autobiography, Tammy: Telling It My Way, and she co-hosted a TV talk show titled The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show with Jim J. Bullock.[16]

1997–2007: Later life and illness

In July 2007, on more solid financial footing, the Messners relocated to Loch Lloyd, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City. Jim Bakker had relocated his operations to Branson, Missouri, in 2003. 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.[17]

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.

She was the subject of a documentary titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye (1999), which was narrated by RuPaul,[6] and a follow-up film titled Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2004).

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.[18] On September 11, 2003, she published a new autobiography, I Will Survive... and You Will, Too!, in which she described her battles with cancer and her life with Messner.

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. Unlike many American Christian fundamentalists she "had long refused to denounce homosexuals" and also expressed compassion towards, and urged support for Americans with HIV/AIDS when it was still a much feared and unknown disease.[8] In the 1980s she interviewed an AIDS patient on her program, "making an impassioned plea to Christians to love and accept their gay brethren."[19] She was benevolently referred to as "the ultimate drag queen,"[20]  and said in her last interview with Larry King that, "When I went — when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."[21]

In early 2004 she appeared on the second season of the VH1 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.[22]

Together, the six put on a children's play and managed a restaurant for a day. 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.

Death

Tammy Faye's 11 years with cancer were highly publicized. She was first diagnosed with colon cancer in March 1996, and the disease went into remission by the end of that year.[23]

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.[24] 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. A 2004 television documentary of her struggle with cancer was produced in 2004.[25][26] It was on King's program again that she announced, on July 20, 2005, that her cancer had returned.[27]

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 attacks, 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".[28]

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 chemotherapy had stopped, but urging her fans to continue to pray for her.[29] 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.[30]

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 (29.5 kg) 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 fans.

On July 20, 2007, Messner died after 11 years with cancer.[31] She was 65 years old. 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 Waldron, Kansas.[32] The ceremony was officiated by the Rev. Randy McCain, the pastor of Open Door Community Church in Sherwood, Arkansas.[31] 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.[33] Her remains were cremated, and her ashes were returned to Waldron Cemetery where they were subsequently buried.[34]

Legacy

In June 2006, a stage musical titled The Gospel According to Tammy Faye opened at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and was subsequently developed as 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.[35][36] 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 and Sean McDaniel, a book by Jeffery Self, and direction by Ryan J. Davis.[37] A star-studded concert of songs from the show opened February 18, 2008, at New York's Metropolitan Room.[38]

A play following the final hours of Tammy Faye, Tammy Faye's Final Audition by Merri Biechler, premiered at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival on June 2, 2015. The play takes place in a fevered dream at the end of her life wherein she enlists the men in her life for one final TV talk show audition.[39]

A musical about the life of BeBe Winans, Born for This, debuted on June 25, 2018 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts. Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker appear as supporting characters who give BeBe and his sister CeCe their first big break as singers on The PTL Club.[40]

Discography

YearAlbumRecord Label
1970Tammy Tammy TammyHymntone Records
1977Tammy Bakker Sings PTL Club FavoritesNew Pax Records
1978Love Never Gives UpPAX Musical Productions
1979We're BlestPTL Club Records & Tapes
1980Run Toward the RoarPTL Club Records & Tapes
1980The Lord's On My SidePTL Club Records & Tapes
1982Tammy Sings... You Can Make It!PTL Club Records & Tapes
1982Old HymnsPTL Club Records & Tapes
1984In the Upper RoomPTL Club Records & Tapes
1984Movin' on to VictoryPTL Club Records & Tapes
1985Don't Give Up!PTL Club Records & Tapes
1986Enough is EnoughPTL Club Records & Tapes
1987The Ballad of Jim & TammySutra Records
19??Peace in the Midst of the Storm???
19??Love, Tammy???

References

  1. ↑ Abernethy, Michael (July 18, 2010). "Tammy Faye Never Understood What That Whole Gay Thing Was About". PopMatters. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  2. ↑ Johnson, M. Alex (July 22, 2007). "Through it all, Tammy Faye never wavered". NBC News. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Obituary: Tammy Faye Messner". Daily Telegraph. 47 (317). July 23, 2007. p. 23.
  4. ↑ Welch, William M. (July 21, 2007). "Ex-wife of evangelist Jim Bakker dies". USA Today. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Gates, Anita (July 22, 2007). "Tammy Faye Bakker, 65, Emotive Evangelist, Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 27, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Camhi, Leslie (August 4, 2000). "Televangelist Tammy Faye Messner is being reborn as a gay icon". The Guardian. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  7. 1 2 Pieters, Steve (1985). "Tammy's House Party: Interview with Steven Peters". The PTL Club (Interview). Interviewed by Tammy Faye Bakker. Video on YouTube.
  8. 1 2 Michelle Tsai. Tammy Faye Messner, Gay Icon, Slate.com July 23, 2007; accessed 03 Jan 2018
  9. 1 2 Testimony: Baker knew about Hahn being paid off – Associated Press article via Pacific Stars and Stripes – September 16, 1987.
  10. ↑ "Larry King Live Interview with Jessica Hahn (rush transcript)". CNN. July 14, 2005. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
  11. ↑ Bakker 1997, p. 512.
  12. ↑ Schmidt, William E. (May 16, 1987). "FOR JIM AND TAMMY BAKKER, EXCESS WIPED OUT A RAPID CLIMB TO SUCCESS". The New York Times. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  13. ↑ Ostling, Richard (August 3, 1987). "Enterprising Evangelism". Time. Retrieved January 27, 2007.
  14. ↑ Hartsoe, Steve (July 22, 2007). "Tammy Faye Messner Dies at 65". The Washington Post. Associated Press. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  15. ↑ Louie, Elaine (March 21, 1996). "CHRONICLE". The New York Times. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  16. ↑ "The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 5, 2017.
  17. ↑ Aarthun, Sarah. (June 23, 2007). Tammy Faye is leaving Charlotte area. The Charlotte Observer Archived June 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ↑ Dicker, Ron (August 24, 2000). "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye". Hartford Courant. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  19. ↑ Ann Hornaday, Tammy's `Eyes' have it, Baltimore Sun, accessed 03 July 2018
  20. ↑ Wilson-Smith, Anthony (May 22, 2000). "Tammy Faye's Fab Fan Club". Maclean's. p. 7.
  21. ↑ Rabey, Steve (October 2, 2000). "Tammy Faye, gay icon". Christianity Today. pp. 85–86.
  22. ↑ Hiatt, Brian (January 12, 2004). "Meet the cast of The Surreal Life". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  23. ↑ Tammy Faye Messner's Cancer Treatments Stop, Weight Down to Just 65 Pounds Fox News. May 10, 2007
  24. ↑ Former Tammy Faye Bakker tells Larry King she has inoperable lung cancer Associated Press/March 19, 2004
  25. ↑ FoxNews.com: "Evangelist Tammy Faye Messner Dies of Cancer at 65" July 22, 2007
  26. ↑ Tammy Faye: Death Defying on IMDb
  27. ↑ Associated Press (July 20, 2005). "Tammy Faye Says Lung Cancer Has Returned". Greenwich Time. Archived from the original on April 15, 2008. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
  28. ↑ Walter Scott (December 10, 2006). "Personality Parade". Parade. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  29. ↑ Tammy Faye Messner (May 10, 2007). "Message to fans". TammyFaye.com. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  30. ↑ "Well Wishes for Tammy Faye's". TammyFaye.com. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  31. 1 2 Public memorial to be planned for Tammy Faye McClatchy Newspapers – July 22, 2007
  32. ↑ "CNN.com - Transcripts".
  33. ↑ "Tammy Faye Messner dies". CNN. July 21, 2007. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  34. ↑ Tammy Faye LaValley Bakker Messner at Find a Grave
  35. ↑ 'Gospel According to Tammy Faye' New Musical Reading", Broadway World News, December 5, 2007.
  36. ↑ Lindsay Wise, "On stage, Tammy Faye lives on: Musical creators say show is a good way to say goodbye", Houston Chronicle, July 22, 2007.
  37. ↑ New Musical 'Big Tent' Covers Life of Tammy Faye Bakker Broadwayworld.com
  38. ↑ Playbill News: Block, Arcelus, Hocking, Stanek and More Set for Tammy Faye Sings Concert Archived January 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  39. ↑ Epple, Aaron. "Cincinnati Fringe Festival returns for its 12th year". Journal-News. Liberty Township, Butler County, Ohio. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  40. ↑ Aucoin, Don. "Stage Review: A spirited but flawed 'Born for This'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved July 23, 2018.

Works cited

  • Bakker, Jim (1997). I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond. Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-0-7852-7136-9.
  • 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 Television
  • Tammy Faye Messner (January 15, 2004). "Tammy Faye Messner : NPR". Fresh Air (Interview: Audio). Interviewed by Terry Gross. NPR. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  • Tammy Faye Bakker on IMDb
  • Tammy Faye Messner at Find a Grave
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