US:Tammy Faye Messner, the former televangelist who as Tammy Faye Bakker was best known for her elaborate make-up, tearful pleas for donations and an uncontrolled appetite for luxury, has died at 65 after a long, very public battle with cancer.
With her baby-faced husband Jim, she introduced a new, cheerful tone to Christian broadcasting during the 1980s. The Bakkers made millions out of their PTL (Praise the Lord), ministry until it collapsed in the wake of sex scandals and financial fraud.
A recorded interview with Ms Messner aired on CNN's Larry King Live on Thursday night, a day before she died, showed her emaciated - she weighed just 65 pounds - but still fully made up.
"I believe when I leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I'm going straight to heaven," she said.
Mr Bakker, whom she divorced in 1992 while he was serving a five-year prison term, said that his former wife lived her life like one of her favourite songs, If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.
"She is now in heaven with her mother and grandmother and Jesus Christ, the one who she loves and has served from childbirth. That is the comfort I can give to all who loved her," he said.
The Bakkers started out as itinerant preachers in the Bible Belt, but when they started presenting a children's puppet show on evangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network in the 1960s, they soon became the most popular presenters on the network.
In the 1970s, they started their own network, blending Hollywood glamour with evangelist preaching and frequent pleas for cash from an audience that eventually reached 100 million.
Tammy Faye's massive wigs, protruding false eyelashes and thick mascara made her an unlikely face for Christian broadcasting, but many women identified with her frank talk about sex and shopping as she declared "My shoppin' demons are hoppin'!" Those demons led her to install an air-conditioned doghouse at the couple's mansion in North Carolina, which had gold taps in the bathrooms and a fleet of vintage cars outside.
In 1987, Mr Bakker admitted that he had an affair with Jessica Hahn, a 32-year-old former church secretary and it emerged later that he had paid her $250,000 to keep quiet about it.
The couple's troubles became more serious when Mr Bakker was charged with defrauding investors in his Heritage USA theme park, which the humorist PJ O'Rourke described as "like being in the First Church of Christ hanging out at the mall" .
Tammy Faye, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, had an unexpected second manifestation in recent years as a pop culture queen, appearing on reality TV shows and in sitcoms and becoming a camp icon in the gay community.
Looking back on her life a decade ago, she said: "When I was a little girl, I used to pray: 'Dear God, please don't let my life be boring.' I found that you have to be careful what you pray for."
