Sister Aimee

Once she answered the divine calling, Aimee Semple McPherson rose fast from unfulfilled housewife in Rhode Island to "miracle woman"-the most enigmatic, pioneering, media-savvy Christian evangelist in the country. She preached up and down the United States, traveling in a 1912 Packard with her mother and her children-and without a man to fix flat tires. Her ministry was rolled out in tents, concert halls, boxing rings, and speakeasies. She prayed for the healing of hundreds of thousands of people, founded the Foursquare Church, and built a Pentecostal temple in Los Angeles of Hollywood-epic dimensions (Charlie Chaplin advised her on sets). But this is not just a story of McPherson's cult of fame. It's also the story about its price: exhaustion, insomnia, nervous breakdowns, sexual scandals, loneliness, and the notorious public disgrace that nearly destroyed her.