Happy Trails Tammy Faye

Tammy Faye Messner, who as Tammy Faye Bakker helped her husband, Jim, build a multimillion-dollar evangelism empire and then watched it collapse in disgrace, died Friday, July 20, 2007. She was 65.

It may surprise you to learn that I was a Tammy Faye Messner fan. It kind of surprises me.

I still remember the first time I saw Tammy Faye Bakker, as she was at that time. It was the 1970's, she and Jim were young televangelists, and she was pregnant with her son (I later learned). The Bakkers were working to raise money for a transmission tower or a TV studio (or some such), it was very early on in their ministry, and I couldn't have been much more than 10 years old. It was early on a Saturday morning, a time when I normally would have been watching cartoons. But, for some reason, the channel knob happened to be tuned to an unusual spot and there they were.

I spent alot of time in church in those days, but nobody I'd ever seen at the Sunday morning worship service looked like Tammy. Even back then, she had the amazing spider leg lashes, the thick dark liner, tons of shadow, the bright exagerrated lips. Next to Jim who was himself remarkably baby-faced, the two looked like nothing so much as two almost frighteningly cheerful wind-up preacher dolls.

I remember Tammy singing on that first show I ever saw. What she lacked in range, she made up for in conviction and enthusiasm. With the microphone held close to her glossy lips, Tammy pointed at The Almighty with one index finger topped off by an unnaturally long bright red polished nail, closed her eyes, and launched into a dramatically heartfelt version of some sort of Jesus pop song. Taken as a whole? Tammy Faye Bakker was a spectacle. One that I personally found it difficult, if not impossible to look away from.

I was hooked.

I didn't watch every weekend, mind you, but when I ran across the show? I wasn't changing the channel. In an age where women just weren't in leadership positions in churches (that I knew of at least), Tammy Faye in all her Maybelline glory, was just as intrinsic to the ministry as Jim. Side by side they saved souls, prayed for the lost and the troubled and most of all asked for money from their "prayer partners" as they called their supporters.

While the singing and the praying and the begging for money was interesting, the high point of every show , hands down always, was Tammy Faye winding up and crying. I don't know how she did it, but Tammy Faye would be moved by people in prison, or the sick, or just the power of the Lord in her life to the point of tears at least once during every telecast. And each and every time? I swear? It was just so sincere and mezmerizing: little Tammy Faye smiling through the tears, her chubby little blush painted cheeks streaked with charcoal rivulets of mascara.

On occassion, Tammy Faye would even sing and cry.

Eventually I would lose touch with the show for a time, but in my early twenties I found them again. Living in my first apartment, I shared a car with my roommate which meant I had to drive him to work at the ungodly hour of 4:30 a.m. When I'd get back to the now empty apartment in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, I'd flip on the TV for company as I slipped back in to bed, and there they were again: my old friends J&T.

By this time Tammy's outfits had upgraded to the point being almost as flashy as her make-up and she had a new short hair-do with blonde highlights. They were building Heritage USA and selling shares in the hotels. Tammy was still singing and crying, but the show had upgraded to sort of a talk show Phil Donahue format. The Bakkers were on their way to the big time.

They had also added a new dimension to the show: talking in tongues. You almost couldn't beat it for sheer entertainment value.

I never totally lost touch with the Bakkers again. PTL expanded, they had their own channel, and it got to the point where you could tune in and see the Bakkers pretty much any time performing in a set eventually so elaborate that it looked like nothing so much as the interior of a Prussian palace.

By the time the scandal hit, the Bakker's dog had an air conditioned detached dog house and the family bathroom fixtures were gold plated. Jim's affair with Jessica Hahn was plastered all over the press, tabloid and otherwise, and it was just the misstep their jealous, bloodthirsty televangelist competition was looking for. Good ol' Jerry Falwell came to the "rescue" offering to shepherd Heritage USA through the crisis, a frightened and pressured Jim signed on the dotted line, and the Bakkers lost the ministry they had spent twenty years building over night.

Jim went to prison. Tammy Faye and the Bakker's son, Jamie, would end up near penniless. Eventually, while Jim was in prison, the Bakkers divorced and Tammy Faye wed Roe Messner, a collegue of Jim's during the PTL days.

Through all the chaos, Tammy Faye never lost her faith or her make-up. Her outrageous personal style had earned her many fans in the gay community and it was often them that rallied around her at many of her darkest times. Unlike others in the conservative world of televangelism, Tammy Faye embraced the gay community.

Diagnosed with colon cancer a few years ago, Tammy Faye faced it like she has everything else: faith filled and optimistic. Her final appearance on Larry King Live last night at an incredibly gaunt almost unrecognizable sixty-five pounds, was at turns disturbing, and inspirational. Girlfriend still had her make-up on, was still holding on to her faith, and was clearly, bravely saying a last good-bye.

Less than 48 hours later she was gone.

I can't say I agreed with Tammy Faye's religious beliefs, but I always admired her indomitable spirit, her ability to keep going no matter what, her talent as (let's face it) a gifted performer, her ground-breaking work to advance women in a profession almost completely dominated by men, her inclusive nature in a business famously the opposite, and her unapolagetic unshakable attachment to her make-up.

So here's one final heartfelt Bizzyville Super Snap for a truly unforgettable woman. I don't know where she is now, but I sure do have a sneaking suspicion.