The Eyes of Tammy Faye: Who was the real Tammy Faye Bakker?
The Eyes of Tammy Faye, based on Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s 2000 documentary of the same name, shines a light into the darkest corners of the life of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Directed by Michael Showalter, the biographical drama features Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain in the glitzy shoes of the charismatic Christian alongside this year’s Golden Globe Best Actor winner Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick… Boom!) as Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye’s far from innocent first husband.
Before you hit the cinema to see The Eyes of Tammy Faye (from January 27) and discover the intimate truths that led to her professional and personal downfall, get to know the real woman behind the make-up…
From left: Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker with Cherry Jones as Tammy Faye’s mother
Born Tamara Faye on March 7, 1942 in Minnesota to two preachers, faith was infused into her life from her first breath. In a foreshadowing of sorts, shortly after birth her parents divorced and her mother (portrayed in The Eyes of Tammy Faye by Cherry Jones) was shunned by the church. She remarried and Tammy Faye became the eldest of eight children (giving the Brady Bunch a run for their money!).
1960. Enter Jim Bakker. The pair were studying at North Central Bible College in Minnesota when they met. Bakker proposed on their third date and they married in April the following year. The couple would go on to have two children: a daughter, Tammy Sue Bakker, and a son, Jamie Charles Bakker.
Tammy Faye Bakker was an accomplished singer, putting out 24 albums
Faye was nineteen when they dropped out of Bible school to travel the US and preach the word of the Lord – well, Bakker did most of the preaching; Tammy Faye played the accordion and sang songs. A successful recording career awaited that included a whopping 24 studio albums.
During their ministering, the couple incorporated puppets to entertain and educate children, which in turn attracted the attention of the founder of the CBN Network, Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds). Robertson hired the televangelists in 1966 to host a children’s show called Come On Over (later retitled Jim and Tammy). They then became the first permanent hosts of The 700 Club.
In 1972, however, Bakker was fired by Robertson over irreconcilable differences. Tammy Faye and her husband left CBN in the rear-view mirror to found their own network, PTL (Praise The Lord or People That Love) Club, which became known as the Jim and Tammy Show. The Christian talk show reached 13 million households at its height and included religious entertainment, personal interviews and many donation requests.
Call-outs were incredibly successful, raking in US$129 million a year in donations. With their small fortune, they purchased 2,300 acres of land and built a 500-room hotel and waterpark complex in South Carolina. Heritage USA, the ‘Christian Disneyland’, opened in 1978. It didn’t last long, though. Eleven years later, Hurricane Hugo shut it down.
Lavish spending and misappropriated funds became the Bakkers’ ultimate downfall
Many criticised the Bakkers luxurious spending for contradicting their humble Christian teachings. Tammy Faye’s trademark designer clothes and bold make-up – which had Chastain in the make-up chair for seven hours some days to recreate – only fuelled their grumblings. But Tammy Faye was all about challenging convention.
Known for her religious divergence, Tammy Faye preached acceptance for all and publicly supported the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS patients. In an interview last year, Steve Pieters (played by Randy Havens) remembers being invited onto her conservative Christian network as a HIV-positive gay man in 1985: “I agreed to the interview right away because I felt that it would be an opportunity for me to reach an audience I would never otherwise get to reach about God’s love for all people, especially LGBT people and people with Aids.”
The Eyes of Tammy Faye depicts the singer’s romance with music producer Gary Paxton (Mary Wystrach)
In the late 70s, Tammy Faye shared a romance with music producer Gary Paxton (played by Mark Wystrach). His wife, Karen, told the Los Angeles Times that Tammy Faye “was in love with Gary, or thought she was, and she knew I knew it.”
This is where the story crescendos. In 1987, Faye admitted to a prescription drug addiction for which she was seeking treatment. Shortly after, a scandal rocked their empire and shattered their Christian image. Jessica Hahn, a church secretary, accused Bakker of raping her and paying her over US$250,000 (of the ministry’s money) for her silence. Two male PTL employees also claimed they had sexual encounters with Bakker.
Two years later, Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy after taking from the PTL Club fundraising purse to support his family’s opulent lifestyle. Whilst Bakker was in jail, Faye filed for divorce. She later remarried building contractor Roe Messner (who built Heritage USA) and, in a true case of history repeating itself, he was later sent to prison for fraud.
Andrew Garfield as Christian preacher Jim Bakker
Faye was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996 and eventually passed away in 2007. In the years between, she continued to attend gay pride events and preach God’s love for all. She tells her side of the story in her book Tammy: Telling It My Way.
What of Jim Bakker? He’s still on TV – he even has his own show. You may have seen his name in the news headlines recently when he was sued for selling a fake COVID-19 cure. But this story isn’t about him…
Tammy Faye preached acceptance for all
When people think of Tammy Faye, they should think of spidery eyelashes and bright, accepting eyes that looked beyond the superficial and into the heart.