Evangelist Tammy Faye Messner, better known as Tammy Faye Bakker, was born on March 7, 1942. She met her first husband Jim Bakker at North Central Bible College. They married in 1961 and began working on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) with Pat Robertson three years later. They became extremely popular religious broadcasters and in 1972 they founded the Praise the Lord (PTL) ministry. In her broadcasts, she displayed a tolerant attitude towards homosexuality and invited her viewers to pray for AIDS sufferers. In 1989, Jim Bakker was convicted of defrauding supporters of his PTL ministry of more than $150 million; including a large payment to the church secretary with whom he was having an affair. The Bakkers divorced in 1992 and a year later she married independent contractor Roe Messner.
In 1996, she appeared on a syndicated television talk show, The Jim J and Tammy Faye Show with gay, HIV-positive actor Jim J. Bullock. A documentary based on her life, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000. She also recorded more than 25 religious albums and wrote several books, including her autobiography Tammy: Telling It My Way and I Will Survive and You Will, Too! She died on July 20, 2007 from inoperable cancer.
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