Seaman, Ann - author of Jimmy Swaggarts Biography
By: Dominick A. Miserandino
Ann's unauthorized biography of Jimmy Swaggart paints a decidedly well-rounded portrait of the televangelist. Seaman tells why she likes the man who fell from the grace of many around the world, and why cousin Jerry Lee Lewis would have never made it to the big-time without him.
DM) Why did you choose to write a book about Jimmy Swaggart?
AS) I chose Jimmy Swaggart because the media made me curious. During
the Holy Wars in the 1980s when Jim and Tammy Bakker were accused of
bilking their PTL (Praise the Lord) followers (Jim did end up in prison for
fraud and
conspiracy), Jimmy Swaggart was interviewed often on television for his
perspective on the whole televangelism phenomenon. He appeared to be an
intelligent man, a straight-shooter, with a very balanced and healthy take on
his craft. He didn't back down from hard questions or wrap himself in
scripture and he was one of the few televangelists who released an audited
financial statement to the press. He was well respected by broadcasters
like Ted Koppel and Larry King.
When he was caught with a prostitute, they all acted as if he was a
complete non-entity (except Larry King, who was still respectful but didn't
interview him again). The media turned on him and branded him a hypocrite.
I wondered how someone who rose so high from such
humble beginnings and brought in $500,000 a day in donations could be
just a shallow flash in the pan. I figured he must be giving
people something important, and I set out to go behind the headlines to
find out what that something was. I found an incredibly complex, compelling
story of hardship and poverty; meanness; talent; and grit. His cousins are
Jerry Lee Lewis and country singer Mickey Gilley, who also have remarkable
stories. They were all born within a year of each other and grew up
side-by-side.
DM) Every life has a story to tell but some people might be critical
of immortalizing people such as Jimmy Swaggart. How do you answer those
critics?
AS) People who criticize me for immortalizing Jimmy Swaggart
might be the same people who, if they were followers of his, felt angry and
betrayed when it turned out he was hypocritical enough to preach against
fornication while doing it himself. I would say to those followers, "If
you think the messenger is the same as the message, you're barking up the
wrong tree."
Here is a summary of what I wrote about Jimmy.
"Jimmy's preaching formula is to dredge up the misery and separation that
his followers feel -- a misery he knows firsthand -- and then give them a
way out. His critics call it manipulative and exploitative, and it is, but
what he does is not wrong because of that. We aren't divine -- we are in a
painful state of separation; that is why we are mean, selfish, and
foolish, and why we keep making the same mistakes repeatedly. Our
spirits are distracted by desire, like a dog by fleas, and every waking
moment is taken up with our scratching. Jimmy gives humans one of the many
things they seek, relief. His prayer meetings and
shindigs are not bad for people. On the contrary, they are nourishing at
their best, and no worse than any other entertainment at the worst. Those
who condemn Jimmy Swaggart because he is a hypocrite do not understand that
his ministry emerged from contradiction and is woven from it -- that it came
from flesh and depends on people's immersion in flesh -- and that neither he
nor anyone else is capable of raising it higher than its own terms."
DM) Does Swaggart know that you have written about him? Has he mentioned
anything to you?
AS) Jimmy and Frances, his wife, are aware that I have been writing the
book. They don't approve of any books about themselves; they want everything in
the past to go away. They have not responded to the book, because it is not
yet on the shelves and they probably don't have a copy. I expect they'll
have a negative reaction when they do react, even though Publishers Weekly
called it "an intelligent and smoothly readable personal history that
chronicles a fascinating slice of Americana," and Library Journal said,
"Seaman neither whitewashes nor vilifies Swaggart, instead examining him
and seeking explanation for both his tremendous accomplishments and tragic
flaws ... this honest evenhanded biography strives for objectivity."
DM) How much influence did Swaggart and his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis
and Mickey Leroy Gilley, the country singer, have on each other?
AS) Well, quite a bit. Jerry was kind of the ringleader, doing the most
daring stuff because his mother would not discipline him, and he got away
with all kinds of things. One of the forbidden things he did was to sneak
over to Haney's Big House at night to listen to the music. Haney's was the
biggest colored dance hall in those parts; they played raunchy tunes as
well as great blues and boogie. Jerry brought that back to the cousins, who
all played piano and learned that boogie rhythm. As I mentioned, Jimmy was
the pious one, and the others looked up to him.
Mickey was a really likeable, nice kid. He had a reputation for getting
lots of girlfriends and for being prodigiously strong, and fun-loving. So
they each had their role, and their natural competitiveness made the roles
sort of larger than life -- they staked out their territory at a young age.
DM) Do you think Jerry Lee Lewis would have become such a rock and roll
legend if not for the pressure/competition of these other relatives while
growing up?
AS) Actually, no. He is a massive talent, to be sure, but part of his
whole format is the frenetic energy he gives off that comes from, as we say
in Texas, never feeding a hog by itself. You have to feed them together if
you want to fatten them because even if they're not hungry, they'll
compete for the food. There's no substitute for that and when it happens
so young, and so intensely, it becomes part of one's character. It sticks.
DM) Some people attribute the challenge and competition as being the
driving force behind the success between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Is
this similar to what happened with Lewis and Swaggart?
AS) Yes, very similar.
DM) Did you ever meet Jimmy Swaggart?
AS) Not formally. I called numerous times and asked for interviews, but
was refused by both Swaggarts. But of course he knew I was doing the book
and he knew who I was; every time I'd show up in the audience at
his church, he would make some comment to the congregation about how these
writers all think they can say anything they want about a guy, and they
never get it right.
DM) Do you feel that he is a genuinely caring person, or was he doing
it all
just to collect money?
AS) Both. He started out dirt poor and could have made plenty of
money playing honky-tonk piano like Jerry. But he was genuinely committed
to serving God and instead of going for money, he traveled for over a
decade in a car, with his wife and son. They raised that kid in the car, as
they traveled from revival to revival so he could preach the Word. They
never had any nice place to sleep -- usually it was some rat-infested
church cellar. They ate bologna sandwiches for supper. Frances tutored
their son in the car because they never stayed anywhere long enough for him
to go to school. With her 9th grade education, she did well enough that he
graduated from high school and entered Louisiana State University. What
happened was that Jimmy was such a powerful performer that he started
having a lot of success. He then became convinced that television was
probably the medium for spreading the gospel throughout the world; it
says in the Book of Revelations that when the gospel is spread through
every land, the Second Coming will occur. Jimmy sincerely felt it was his
mandate to help bring that about and, on the way, he and Frances kind of
got swallowed up by the business end of things and the need to keep on
making more and more money so they could buy more and more stations and air
time.
DM) You obviously find Jimmy interesting, but do you like Jimmy Swaggart as
a person?
AS) I don't know him as a person, but I would probably like him quite a
bit but at a distance, as most of the people who have gotten near to him
have done. I doubt if I or anyone else could get really close to him,
because it seems that Frances has staked out the immediate vicinity
pretty thoroughly since their marriage in the early 1950s. He's been her
project, and virtually her property, for many years. Though he is a very
strong and important character, I'm not sure there's really a person in
there in the ordinary sense that you and I mean it, because when someone
marries that young and stays that focused on something for decades and
decades, the expansiveness that constitutes the ordinary breadth of human
experience kind of gets choked off.
DM) What do you mean?
AS) I mean that he's not been allowed to have the ordinary breadth of
human experience. In his own way, he's been very sheltered; first, in
childhood, he was set apart from the other kids, given a mandate to preach
and be above worldly cares. Then, in marriage, his nose was kept firmly to
the ministerial grindstone by his wife and he was kept away from the
company of ordinary people. He moved in a closed and narrowed world, less
expansive than the world other people live in, with less experience of that
larger world.
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