Thursday, May 04, 2000
Having the last laugh
By Laura Pulfer
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tammy Faye's eyes are just as dramatically decorated as ever. She's no fool. They are her trademark.
The former televangelist is shorter than I expected — an inch under 5 feet. But her flaming red hair was decidedly tall. She was here for the Richwood Flea Market in her most recent incarnation as national spokesperson for flea markets. She giggles. “I just go around the country, eat fried chicken and help people shop.”
This is amazing. Not the shopping or the chicken. One assumes all the jewelry didn't simply appear on her doorstep. And even during the excesses of the PTL dynasty, she never appeared to be a cordon bleu kind of gal.
The giggle. That's what is striking. She and Jim Bakker presided over what surely must have been television's wettest moments. Tears. More tears. Tears mixed with mascara runoff.
Then they really got something to cry about.
Drying the tears
The Bakkers' television empire collapsed amid scandalous revelations of infidelity, and Jim Bakker was convicted in 1989 of defrauding followers of $158 million. “I had absolutely no part in running Heritage USA at all,” Tammy Faye insists.
“We had a nice home. We had rented cars. But if you go back at PTL, there are millions and millions of dollars worth of buildings still setting there. That money is still setting there. We only spent what our paycheck was.”
She thought about writing a book, All I Did Was Sing. Instead, she dried her tears, faced down cameras and “pulled myself up by my bootstraps.”
The oldest of eight children, she was born 58 years ago in International Falls, Minn. She met Jim, whom she divorced in 1992, at Bible college. She later married the contractor who built the PTL complex. Her full name is Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. But, like Cher and Madonna and Elvis and Tiger, she is a star.
No last name needed.
She has a recurring role on the Drew Carey Show, flogs her own makeup line on the Internet, and a documentary of her life after the tabloids is headed for theaters this summer. And then HBO.
The natural look
She is having a great time. And if the joke is on her, she's first to laugh.
Why is the film about you called The Eyes of Tammy Faye?
“Well, why do you think?” She bats her lashes obligingly.
She played a makeup artist on Roseanne's sitcom. “My specialty was the natural look.”
She forgives everybody — Jim, his girlfriend Jessica Hahn, the tabloids, the friends who disappeared during the scandal. And if she squandered a lot of money that belonged to somebody else, well, people appear to forgive her as well.
The woman who applies her makeup with a trowel, who has successfully battled drug addiction and colon cancer, whose life could be the lyrics of country music is on top again. Bigger than ever.
She lives near her grandkids and chats up Larry King and Rosie O'Donnell. People stand in line for an autograph and a hug. Maybe they look into those dark-ringed eyes — past the jokes and what they've heard from somebody else — and see her garish gallantry. Maybe they believe her heart is as big as her hair.
Whatever it is, Tammy Faye is having the last laugh.
E-mail Laura Pulfer at lpulfer@enquirer.com or call 768-8393.
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