THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE: Documentary. Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy
Barbato. Narrated by RuPaul. (Not rated. 79 minutes. At the Embarcadero, Act
1 & 2 in Berkeley and Camera 3 in San Jose.)

---

Shaped like a guinea pig, smothered in makeup and given to spontaneous
torrents of tears, Tammy Faye Bakker was the ultimate in mid-’80s kitsch.
First lady of religious broadcasting and drama queen par excellence, Tammy
Faye became the easiest of punch lines for late-night talk show hosts — a
hybrid of cloying cuteness, Christian piety and Las Vegas cheese.

But do we know her? In “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” an upbeat documentary
that opens today at the Embarcadero, the woman beneath the spiked eyelashes
emerges hipper, wise and a lot more likable than one expects. Remarried to
contractor Roe Messner, who was her ex-husband Jim Bakker’s friend and
confidant, Tammy Faye today lives — “in virtual exile,” we’re told — in
a gated community in Palm Desert, near Palm Springs.

Twelve years after the Jessica Hahn scandal that sent her ex-
husband to prison and ended her reign as a tear-stained televangelist, Tammy
Faye is trying to re-establish herself as a secular TV personality. Her talk
show with gay comedian Jim J. Bullock tanked years ago and countless other
hardships have left their scars, but Tammy Faye perseveres.

When the end of the world comes, says Bullock, “There’ll be nothing left
but cockroaches, Tammy Faye and Cher.”

DIGNIFYING HERSELF

Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (“The Real Ellen Story”),
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is a gentle, affirmative portrait that allows its
subject to speak for herself. Without apology, Bailey and Barbato seek to
dignify Tammy Faye, to prove that the most ridiculed woman of the 1980s is
in fact a compassionate, funny, shoot-from-the-hip survivor.

The full saga is here: love at first sight and teenage marriage to
minister Bakker; pioneer days on the “electric church”; meteoric highs
with the PTL (Praise the Lord) TV network; the building of Heritage USA, the
most popular theme park in America after Disneyland and Disney World.

We see how Tammy Faye’s TV career started with a Christian kids’ show
that used music and tacky hand puppets. We see her hosting the first
Christian talk show, riding a camel in the Holy Land, advocating love for
AIDS patients when the Christian community had made them pariahs. In her
heyday, a chirpy promotional ad called her “a double whammy of turned-on
Christian love.”

When a newspaper reporter revealed her husband’s one-night indiscretion
with sexy co-worker Jessica Hahn, and a duplicitous Jerry Falwell stepped in
to seize control of PTL and smear the Bakkers, Tam
my Faye’s world collapsed. Bouts with drug addiction and colon cancer
followed, as did a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic and divorce from Bakker.

She came through it all: estrangement from her teenage daughter, the
incarceration of both Jim Bakker and Messner (for bankruptcy fraud),
problems with her son (who appears today with a pierced eyebrow), a colossal
media circus (“O.J. was nothing compared to what happened around us”).
Wiping away another tear, Tammy jokes, “I’ve often thought I should be on
Broadway with my drama.”

Bailey and Barbato structure their film like a Horatio Alger tale of
pluck and fortitude, dividing it into chapters that are introduced with
title cards and a pair of hound-dog puppets. It’s a silly, annoying gesture,
and it seems contradictory if their purpose here is to redeem and update
their beleaguered heroine.

MAKEUP SECRETS

On the fun side, we get to look inside Tammy Faye’s makeup purse,
learning that she buys her blush at swap meets and has had her eyebrows,
eyelids and lips permanently painted. When she goes for a photo shoot and is
urged to lose her monster lashes, she refuses: “They’re my trademark;
without my eyelashes, I wouldn’t be Tammy Faye.”

But “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” demonstrates, if nothing else, that
there’s a genuine person — chastened by mistakes and more compassionate,
perhaps, for all she’s suffered — beneath the war paint and the stardust.

On duck.fm you can find full length songs and download mp3 for free.

“We’re all just people made out of the same old dirt,” Tammy declares
firmly. “And God didn’t make any junk.”
..

E-mail Edward Guthmann at guthmanne@sfgate.com.