Tammy Faye Bakker
Tammy Faye Bakker | |
|---|---|
 Tammy Faye in 2004 | |
| Born | March 7, 1942 |
| Died | July 20, 2007 (aged 65) |
| Occupation | televangelist |
Tammy Faye Bakker was an American televangelist, who founded the television ministry called the PTL club (Praise The Lord club), with her husband, Jim Bakker in 1974.[1]
Her husband was caught engaging in adultery, and defrauding their followers, and they divorced in 1992.[2]
A documentary about her life, entitled, The Eyes of Tammy Faye was released in 2000, prior to her death, in 2007.[3] Bakker had favored an unusually thick eye make-up, inspiring the title of the film. The film was generally sympathetic to Bakker, suggesting she too was a victim of her husband's deceit, and not a co-conspirator. Bakker was able to get on-air again. She co-hosted a modest talk show in the early 1990s, and was a house-member on the reality TV show, The Surreal Life, in 2004, appearing beside Vanilla Ice and Erik Estrada.
Her co-host on that talk show, Jim J. Bullock, was a gay man, and Bakker became known for her strong support for gay rights, and for AIDS sufferers.
In 2021 Actor Jessica Chastain played Bakker in a biopic, also entitled The Eyes of Tammy Faye.[4] Chastain was one of the film's producers. It too was generally sympathetic to Bakker.
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑
Clyde Haberman (2026-10-06). "Jim Bakker, TV Evangelist Felled by Fraud and Sex Scandals, Dies". ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Bakker and his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, rode to fame and riches preaching the gospel of prosperity, the notion that those who embraced genuine Christian faith would reap material rewards.
- ↑ "Tammy Faye Bakker Gets Divorce, Custody of Son, 16". Associated Press. 1992-03-14. Retrieved 2026-10-06 – via Los Angeles Times.
- ↑
"The Eyes of Tammy Faye". imdb. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
Twelve years after the dramatic collapse of the Christian empire of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, this documentary tells for the first time what really happened when they lost control of the first and most successful TV ministry of its kind.
- ↑
"Jim Bakker, televangelist who built The PTL Club, dead at 86". CBC News. 2026-10-06. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, cultural icons — so much so that they were often skewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on Saturday Night Live. A theatrical movie on their lives, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, was released in September 2021.
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