PBS Frontline traces rise and fall of television evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker and investigates why government agencies failed to vigorously investigate charges of corruption in Bakker empire.
01-26-1988
1h 0m
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Tamara Faye "Tammy" Messner (née LaValley; March 7, 1942 – July 20, 2007), formerly Tammy Faye Bakker, was an American Christian singer, evangelist, entrepreneur, author, talk show host, and television personality.
She initially gained notice for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program she co-founded with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. Prior to founding The PTL Club, they had hosted their own puppet show series for local programming in Minnesota in the early 1970s, and Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.
Messner would garner significant publicity when Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club. After divorcing Bakker in 1992, she remarried to Roe Messner. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, of which she suffered intermittently for over a decade before dying of the disease in 2007.
Over the course of her career, Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for her moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream Evangelists, particularly her acceptance of the LGBT community and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
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Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989), the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975) and prior to that an actor.
Upon his college graduation, Reagan first moved to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then in 1937 to Los Angeles, California. He began a career as an actor appearing in over fifty movie productions. Some of his most notable roles are in Knute Rockne, All American and Kings Row.
Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric. His start in politics occurred during his work for General Electric.
Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After supporting of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980 presidential election.
Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year. He died ten years later at the age of 93.