Tammy Faye Messner

Jul 24 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Lord certainly seemed to look after the bushy-haired blonde when she was at her prime, trilling like a wee canary with mascara aflow from her weeping eyes, and the interest swelling like melons in her many bank accounts.

And God moved in an even more mysterious way when he turned the tiny lady into a “gay icon” at a time when TV evangelists generally condemned homosexuality.

But little conformed to pattern in the life of Tamara (Tammy) Faye Messner, not least her dignified struggle against cancer. This contrasted sharply with the razzle-dazzle of the TV shows she had presented with her husband, Jim Bakker, who would later be spectacularly defrocked for adultery and jailed on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy.

There was simple bravery in her public admissions that the cancer, which had spread from the colon to her lungs, was inoperable.

“Now it’s up to God and my faith,” she said.” Her weight had fallen to 65 pounds, spread tautly over her 4ft 11ins. In her high days of syrupy sentiment, Tammy had said that the growing season in her native International Falls, Minnesota, had been short because it was the coldest spot in the USA.

She was baptised Tamara Faye LaValley, the eldest of eight children, born to Pentecostal preachers, Carl and Rachel, who split up when she was a child. She stayed with her strict mother, attending church services and shunning earthly pleasures.

During this time, she felt the glow of God’s love and after graduating from school, she entered the North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, meeting the former disc jockey Bakker.

They married in 1961 and soon began Christian broadcasts, which would lead to their own Praise the Lord Ministry and the unholy-rolling of money. At their zenith in the 1980s, the couple were said to be receiving $200,000 a year each. They had 47 bank accounts, $60,000 worth of gold-plating in their bathroom, an air-conditioned dog kennel, six sumptuous houses, three Cadillacs and a Rolls-Royce.

Bakker’s affair with his secretary became public in 1988, as investigations began into the funding of the church. Tammy and Bakker, who had two children, divorced. She married Roe Messner, a builder, in 1992.

Tammy continued to prosper with numerous TV appearances and confessional writing.

Tammy Faye Messner, evangelist, born March 7, 1942; died July 20, 2007.