The Eyes Of Tammy Faye

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

The PTL evangelistic empire is in ruins, done in by sloppy or crooked management and a sex scandal. But that's not the end of Tammy Faye Bakker's troubles. Tammy Faye has fought drug addiction and cancer, seen two husbands jailed, become a cruelly mocked creature, working the far fringes of our celebrity nation. But her infamous eyelashes are intact, and so is her good nature. Maybe this documentary is a bit too enthralled by her, but she emerges from it a game girl, a gay activist and a curiously sympathetic figure.

--By Richard Schickel