Tammy Faye Messner, 65, dies

The Baltimore Sun

Tammy Faye Messner, the mascara-laden former wife of televangelist Jim Bakker, the charismatic TV preacher with the choir-boy face with whom she appeared on their popular Christian talk-variety show until his downfall amid scandal in the late 1980s, has died. She was 65.

Mrs. Messner, who underwent surgery for colon cancer in 1996 and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004, died Friday, CNN talk-show host Larry King told the network last night.

In a letter posted on her Web site in May, Mrs. Messner said that doctors had stopped treating her cancer and that her weight had dropped to 65 pounds. "Now," she wrote, "it's up to God and my faith."

She revealed that she had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer during a March 2004 appearance on CNN's Larry King Live. That Mrs. Messner would publicly announce her diagnosis on Mr. King's talk show underscored her status as a faded, yet enduring, pop-culture figure.

Indeed, her radiation treatments even became part of a 2005 documentary, Tammy Faye: Death Defying.

"During radiation," she said at the time, "I did not lose my hair, but I lost my eyelashes. Which is the funniest thing in the world to me, because it's my trademark."

In the 1970s and '80s, as Tammy Faye Bakker, she was known as "the first lady of televangelism," a high-profile pioneer of the "electronic church."

At 4-foot-11 (not counting 3 1/2 -inch spiked heels) and with her red hair and heavily made-up eyes, Mrs. Messner was described in the media as a "human kewpie doll" and someone who seemed to "ooze kitsch." As prone to giggling as she was to crying mascara-stained tears on camera, Tammy Faye Bakker proved to be irresistible fodder for late-night comedians.

"She was the most laughed-at woman in the Western world," Fenton Bailey told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. Mr. Bailey co-director of The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a largely sympathetic documentary of Mrs. Messner's life.

"I don't know of any woman in our time who has been so ridiculed, put down, maligned," singer Pat Boone said in the 2000 film. "Really, I equate her with Hillary Clinton, because these two women have both suffered tremendously by the things that their husbands may have done, and yet she just keeps going."

During the heyday of the Bakkers' television ministry, The Jim and Tammy Show was reportedly carried on more than 1,400 stations, and their PTL ministry took in millions of dollars a month.

The centerpiece of their evangelical empire - Heritage USA, a 2,300-acre Christian theme park, resort and ministry headquarters in Fort Mill, S.C. - reportedly attracted 6 million visitors in 1986. Those who stayed at what was often described as "a Christian Disneyland" could buy eight different Tammy Faye record albums, not to mention items from the Tammy Faye line of cosmetics and pantyhose.

PTL stood for "Praise the Lord" and "People That Love," but critics insisted it stood for "Pass the Loot" and "Pay the Lady."

The downfall of Jim Bakker began in 1987 with the revelation that he had had a one-time sexual encounter with a former church secretary from New York, Jessica Hahn, in a Florida motel room in 1980 - and that $265,000 in ministry funds were later used to keep Hahn quiet.

In March 1987, the scandalized Jim Bakker resigned as president of the PTL ministry and turned it over to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. In 1988, Bakker and former top PTL associate Richard Dortch were indicted on federal charges of fraud and conspiracy.

The indictment included allegations that at a time when the PTL was in poor financial shape, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker received bonuses totaling some $3.5 million for their personal use.

On Thursday, an emaciated Mrs. Messner appeared with her husband, Roe Messner, on Larry King Live to provide an update on her condition, for which she was receiving hospice care and taking morphine to ease the pain of swallowing food.

"I talk to God every single day, and I say, 'God, my life is in your hands, and I trust you with me,'" she said. Asked whether she had any regrets, she said: "I don't think about it, Larry, because it's a waste of good brain space."

Added Mrs. Messner: "I believe when I leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I'm going straight to heaven."

Information on survivors and services was incomplete last night.

Dennis McLellan writes for the Los Angeles Times.

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