Barbara Eden co-starred in
the film "The Brass Bottle" (1964) which would inspire
Sidney Sheldon in the creation of "I Dream of Jeannie" in 1965.
Barbara Eden (born August 23rd, 1931) is
an American film, stage, and television actress and singer. She is
best known for her starring role of "Jeannie" in the sitcom
I Dream of Jeannie.
Eden was born Barbara Jean Morehead in
Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of Alice Mary (née Franklin) and
Hubert Henry Morehead. Her parents divorced when she was three; she
and her mother, Alice, moved to San Francisco, where later her mother
married Harrison Connor Huffman, a telephone lineman. The Great
Depression deeply affected the Huffman family, and as they were
unable to afford many luxuries, Barbara's mother entertained the
children by singing songs. This musical background left a lasting
impression on the actress, who began taking acting classes because
she felt it might help her improve her singing.
Her first public performance was singing
in the church choir, where she sang the solos. When she was 14 she
sang in local bands for $10 a night in night clubs. At age 16, she
became a member of Actor's Equity. She studied singing at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music and acting with the Elizabeth
Holloway School of Theatre. She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High
School in San Francisco in the Spring Class of 1949 and studied
theater for one year at City College of San Francisco. She was then
elected Miss San Francisco, as Barbara Huffman, in 1951. Barbara also
entered the Miss California pageant, but did not win.
As
a young actress Eden made featured appearances on television shows
such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (as "Barbara
Morehead" and "Barbara Huffman"), The West Point
Story, Highway Patrol, Private Secretary, I Love Lucy, The
Millionaire, Target: The Corruptors!, Crossroads, Gunsmoke, December
Bride, Perry Mason, Bachelor Father, Father Knows Best, Adventures in
Paradise, The Andy Griffith Show (above right), Cain's Hundred,
Saints and Sinners, The Virginian, Slattery's People, The Rogues, and
the series finale of Route 66 playing the role of Margo.
She guest-starred in four episodes of
Burke's Law, playing different roles each time. She was an uncredited
extra in the movie The Tarnished Angels with Rock Hudson, in
partnership with 20th Century Fox studios. She then starred in the
syndicated comedy TV series How to Marry a Millionaire. The show was
based on the film of the same name.
Discovery in the Hollywood sense came when
she starred in a play with James Drury. Film director Mark Robson,
who later directed her in the movie From the Terrace, had come to the
play and wanted her for 20th Century Fox studios. Her screen test was
the Joanne Woodward role in No Down Payment. Though she did not get
the role, the studio gave her a contract. Eden did a screen test for
the role of Betty Anderson in the 1957 film version of Peyton Place,
though Terry Moore got the role. She had minor roles in Bailout At
43,000, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and The Wayward Girl, and
then became a leading lady in films and starred opposite Gary Crosby,
Barry Coe, and Sal Mineo in A Private's Affair, and had a co-starring
role in Flaming Star (1960), with Elvis Presley.
The
following year, she played in a supporting role as Lt. Cathy Connors
in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (pictured above
giving co-star and real-life husband Michael Ansara a tense look).
She starred in The Wonderful World of the
Brothers Grimm, a George Pal-directed Cinerama film for MGM, and
another Irwin Allen production for 20th Century Fox Five Weeks in a
Balloon (1962). Eden was also the female lead in the 1962 20th
Century Fox comedy Swingin' Along, starring the comedy team of Tommy
Noonan and Peter Marshall, in their final joint screen appearance.
She did a screen test with Andy Williams for the 20th Century Fox
movie State Fair, but didn't get the role.
Her last film for 20th Century Fox was The
Yellow Canary (1963). She left Fox studios (due to budget cuts) and
began guest-starring in shows such as Saints And Sinners, also acting
in films for MGM, Universal, and Columbia. She played supporting
roles over the next few years, including The Brass Bottle, and 7
Faces of Dr. Lao, both with Tony Randall. In 1965 she signed a
contract with Sidney Sheldon to become "Jeannie," a genie
in a bottle rescued by an astronaut in the television sitcom I Dream
of Jeannie for NBC-TV. She played this role for five years and 139
episodes. Eden also played Jeannie's sister in eight episodes and
Jeannie's mother in at least one.
After
various brunette starlets and beauty queens unsuccessfully tried out
for the role she was approached by Sheldon who had seen her in The
Brass Bottle and had been recommended by various colleagues. Eden
played Jeannie, a beautiful genie set free from her bottle by
astronaut and United States Air Force captain (later major) Anthony
Nelson, played by Larry Hagman. Bill Daily played Nelson's best
friend and fellow astronaut Roger Healey. Hagman would go on to play
ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1980s prime time television
soap opera Dallas, while Daily donned another uniform as a commercial
airline navigator and later a co-pilot, as Howard Borden on The Bob
Newhart Show. On The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary reunion show
in 1991, the show's characters analyzed Bob's dream from the Newhart
finale, where that show ended with Bob waking up in bed with Suzanne
Pleshette, his wife from the Bob Newhart Show. At one point Howard
recalled, "I had a dream like that once. I dreamed I was an
astronaut in Florida for five years," as scenes from I Dream of
Jeannie featuring Bill Daily as Roger Healey were shown.
Hoped to be a blockbuster like its
rival-show Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie was only a mild ratings
success, topping off its first year at #27, tying with Lassie. The
series spent its second, third, and fifth seasons out of the top
thirty programs. Season four proved to be the sitcom's most
successful year, ending at #26.
In the series, Eden wore her trademark
"Jeannie Costume", a costume that was designed by Gwen
Wakeling with the colors pink and red chosen by Eden. During the
second season reporters visiting the set would joke that Eden had no
navel as it was almost never visible when in costume. The story
picked up momentum and as it did the network censors began to insist
that her navel remain hidden. In the fourth season George Schlatter
the creator of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In expressed a desire to
premiere Eden's navel on his show. As soon as his intentions were
revealed the network held a meeting of executives to discuss his idea
and it was deemed inappropriate to do so. However, her navel is
glimpsed in a few season four and season five episodes, much to the
dislike of the censors. After four years of dating, Jeannie and
Anthony got married in the show's fifth season, a decision that was
forced by the network. Eden complained to the network about the two
marrying, claiming that this change in the plotline would take away
from the show's humor and the sexual tension between Jeannie and
Anthony. However, even after the change, the network had grown tired
of the series by the end of the 1969-1970 television season and
canceled the show after five seasons and 139 episodes.
The
series became hugely popular during decades of syndication and has
had two spin-off reunion movies. The first, I Dream of Jeannie: 15
Years Later a 1985 television movie (left), starred all the original
cast excluding Larry Hagman, who was unavailable due to the shooting
schedule of his then-current series, "Dallas". The role of
Anthony Nelson was played by Wayne Rogers for this film only. The
second television spin-off movie of the series aired in 1991 and was
called I Still Dream of Jeannie, in which Hagman was still absent,
Anthony Nelson doesn't appear in this film at all. There was talk of
a third I Dream of Jeannie movie but, with the death of Larry Hagman,
no projects have been cast or even written.
After I Dream of Jeannie ended Eden did an
unaired pilot, The Barbara Eden Show, and another pilot, The Toy
Game. She also began starring in and sometimes producing a string of
successful made-for-TV movies, making at least one a year for one of
the networks. They were all top-rated. Her first TV movie was called
The Feminist And The Fuzz. Although she is best known for comedy,
most of these films were dramas, as when she starred with her
"Jeannie" co-star Larry Hagman in A Howling in the Woods
(1971). She starred in The Woman Hunter (1972) with Robert Vaughn (of
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), an earlier costar from and episode of
Gunsmoke. In The Stranger Within (1974), Eden plays unwitting
housewife Ann Collins, who becomes one of many earthling women who
are impregnated by extraterrestrials. Like the mother-to-be in
Rosemary's Baby, Ann develops unusual prenatal cravings (in this
case, coffee grounds, massive amounts of salt, and blood-rare meat).
The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Lee Philips.
In
1977 Barbara Eden played Liz Stonestreet, a ex- policewoman turned
private detective who investigates the disappearance of a missing
heiress, in a critically acclaimed TV movie Stonestreet: Who Killed
The Centerfold Model?.
She played Lee Rawlins, a woman who worked
at a department store, in the ABC TV movie The Girls in The Office
(1979), and starred in and co-produced with her own production
company (MI-Bar Productions) the NBC TV movie romantic comedy The
Secret Life of Kathy McCormick (1988), about "a simple grocery
clerk, who finds her way into her local high society and the life of
a wealthy suitor who thinks she's a stockbroker." In addition,
she starred in and produced the romantic comedy TV movie Opposites
Attract (1990), co-starring John Forsythe, their first joint screen
appearance since her guest-starring role in a 1957 episode of his
Bachelor Father TV series.
Eden continued to appear regularly on
stage, starring in the play Blithe Spirit, and in television specials
like Telly...Who Loves Ya Baby? with Telly Savalas, and The Best of
Everything with Hal Linden and Dorothy Loudon.
In 1978, she had starred in the feature
film Harper Valley PTA, based on the popular country song. This led
to a namesake television series in 1981; in both the movie and the TV
series, she played the show's heroine, Stella Johnson. The show won
11 of its 13 time slots during its first season. It was a comedy
version of Peyton Place with Anne Francine playing wealthy villain
Flora Simpson Reilly. In one episode Stella dressed in a blue and
gold genie costume and in another she played both Stella and her
cousin Della Smith (similar to Jeannie's evil twin-sister character).
The show Harper Valley PTA began January 16th, 1981, and was renamed
simply Harper Valley when the show began its second season on October
29th, 1981. The show ran until August 14th, 1982, producing 29
episodes for NBC and Universal MCA, which were rerun in 2000 by TV Land.
From April 3rd through September 16th,
1984, Eden starred in the Lee Guber and Shelly Gross national
production of the John Kander and Fred Ebb Tony Award-winning musical
comedy Woman Of The Year, playing the role of Tess Harding Craig,
alongside Don Chastain (as Sam Craig), and Marilyn Cooper (as Jan
Donovan, reprising her Tony Award-winning role on Broadway).
In
1990, Eden had a recurring role of a billionairess seeking revenge
against J. R. Ewing in five episodes of the final season of Dallas,
playing the captivating character Lee Ann De La Vega, reuniting her
with her I Dream of Jeannie costar Hagman. In her final episode, the
character admits that her maiden name was "Lee Ann Nelson",
which was a production gag, as "Nelson" was the surname of
Hagman's character, and Eden's character's married name, in I Dream
of Jeannie.
In 1991, she starred in the stage play
Same Time, Next Year with Wayne Rogers, and reprised her role of
Jeannie in a television movie of the week. In 1993, she starred in an
11 city national tour of the play Last of the Red Hot Lovers with Don
Knotts. She also made three guest appearances in the last few seasons
of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch as the evil family matriarch, Great
Aunt Irma.
Eden has starred in such musical comedies
as Nite Club Confidential (playing the role of Kay Goodman, in 1996),
The Sound Of Music, Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific with Robert
Goulet, The Pajama Game with John Raitt, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
playing Lorelei Lee. She has been a musical guest star in many
variety television shows, including 21 Bob Hope specials, The Carol
Burnett Show, The Jonathan Winters Show, The Jerry Lewis Show, This
is Tom Jones show, Tony Orlando and Dawn, and Donny and Marie. She
released an album entitled Miss Barbara Eden in 1967, for the record
label Dot Records. She recorded three songs in 1978 for the Harper
Valley P.T.A. Soundtrack.
She received an honorary Doctor of Laws
degree in the spring of 1990 from the University of West Los Angeles
School of Law. On November 17th, 1988, she received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame sidewalk for her contributions to television
at 2003 Hollywood Boulevard.
From
2000 until 2004, Eden starred in the national touring production of
the play, The Odd Couple ... The Female Version, playing the role of
Florence Unger opposite Rita MacKenzie as Olive Madison.
In March 2006, Eden reunited with her
former I Dream Of Jeannie costar Larry Hagman for a publicity tour in
New York City to promote the first season DVD of I Dream of Jeannie.
They appeared together on such shows as Good Morning America, The
View, Martha, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and Showbiz
Tonight. In March 2006, Hagman and Eden also reunited, this time
onstage in New York, for Love Letters at the College of Staten Island
and at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.
This was Eden's first visit to the Academy since appearing in The
West Point Story in 1956.
Eden's most recent work was starring in
the play Love Letters with Hal Linden, and a guest-starring role on
the Lifetime series Army Wives, written and produced by her niece,
Katherine Fugate, the TV Movie Always and Forever for the Hallmark
Channel (2009) and hosting the national touring production of
Ballroom With a Twist, a live theater show from Louis van Amstel of
Dancing with the Stars. In late 2013, Barbara Eden was cast in the
movie "One Song," which filmed in Excelsior, Minnesota.
In May 2013, Barbara appeared with former
American President Bill Clinton, Sir Elton John, and Fergie at the
opening ceremony of the 21st Life Ball in Vienna, where Barbara wore
her famous Jeannie harem costume (below left).
Barbara
wrote a memoir, Jeannie Out of the Bottle, which was released on
April 5th, 2011 by Crown Archetype, a division of Random House.
Chronicling Eden's personal life and Hollywood career of more than 50
years, the book debuted at #14 on the New York Times Best Seller
List. "Jeannie Out of the Bottle" includes intimate details
about Barbara's early childhood, her rise to popularity in her teens
and early twenties, her costars over the years, as well as Eden's
work leading up to and during I Dream of Jeannie. Also covered are
her three marriages (to Michael Ansara from 1958 to 1974, Charles
Fegert from 1977 to 1982, and Jon Eicholtz from 1991 to the present)
and her "emotional breakdown" following the death of her
only child, Matthew Ansara, from a drug overdose.
AV
CLUB SLIDESHOW DEPARTMENT
My Neat Stuff Slideshow - Jssor Slider, Slideshow with Javascript Source Code
A Brand New Life
- Even Housekeepers Sing the Blues (1990)
- Children of a Legal Mom (1990)
- Private School (1989)
- I Fought the Law (1989)
- Above and Beyond Therapy (1989)
- The Honeymooners (1989)
Adventures in Paradise
- The Inheritance (1961)
The Andy Griffith Show
- The Manicurist (1962)
Bachelor Father
- Bentley and the Revolving Housekeepers (1957)
Burke's Law
- Who Killed the Man on the White Horse? (1965)
- Who Killed Cornelius Gilbert? (1964)
- Who Killed the Paper Dragon? (1964)
- Who Killed Harris Crown? (1963)
Cain's Hundred
- Savage in Darkness (1962)
Crossroads
- Greenhill Far Away (1957)
Dallas
- Designing Women (1991)
- 'S' Is for Seduction (1991)
- Lock, Stock and Jock (1991)
- Sail On (1991)
- The Odessa File (1990)
December Bride
- The Other Woman (1957)
Dr. Kildare
- If You Can't Believe the Truth... (1963)
Father Knows Best
- The Rivals (1958)
George Lopez
- George Is Maid to Be Ruth-Less (2007)
Gunsmoke
- Romeo (1957)
Harper Valley P.T.A.
- series star as Stella Johnson (30
episodes 1981-1982)
Highway Patrol
- Hostage Copter (1957)
How to Marry a Millionaire
- series star as Loco Jones (52 episodes 1957-1959)
I Dream of Jeannie
- series star as Jeannie (139 episodes 1965-1970)
I Love Lucy
- Country Club Dance (1957)
The Lineup
- The Samuel Bradford Case (1958)
The Millionaire
- Millionaire Ted McAllister (1957)
NBC Special Treat
- Flight from Fuji (Narrator 1975)
Off to See the Wizard
- Hell Cats (1967)
Perry Mason
- The Case of the Angry Mourner (1957)
Rawhide
- Damon's Road: Part 1 and 2 (1964)
- Incident at Confidence Creek (1963)
The Rogues
- Wherefore Art Thou, Harold? (1965)
Route 66
- Where There's a Will, There's a Way:
Part 1 & 2 (1964)
Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
- A Fish Tale (2003)
- The Arrangement (2002)
- A Birthday Witch (2002)
Saints and Sinners
- Daddy's Girl (1962)
Slattery's People
- Question: When Do We Hang the Good
Samaritan? (1965)
Target: The Corruptors
- Babes in Wall Street (1962)
Teamo Supremo
- Brenda's Birthday Bandit (2003)
The Virginian
- The Brazos Kid (1964)
West Point
- Decision (1956)
Selected Barbara
Eden Filmography
1956
Back from Eternity (uncredited)
1957
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (uncredited)
Bailout at 43,000 (uncredited)
The Wayward Girl
1959
A Private's Affair
1960
Flaming Star
From the Terrace
Twelve Hours to Kill
1961
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
All Hands on Deck
Swingin' Along
1962
Five Weeks in a Balloon
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
1963
The Yellow Canary
1964
The Brass Bottle
7 Faces of Dr. Lao
The New Interns
Ride the Wild Surf
The Confession
1967
Kismet (TV Movie)
1971
The Feminist and the Fuzz (TV Movie)
A Howling in the Woods (TV Movie)
1972
The Woman Hunter (TV Movie)
1973
Guess Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?
(TV Movie)
The Barbara Eden Show (TV Movie)
The Toy Game (TV Movie)
1974
Out to Lunch (TV Movie)
The Stranger Within (TV Movie)
1975
Let's Switch! (TV Movie)
1976
The Amazing Dobermans
How to Break Up a Happy Divorce (TV Movie)
1977
Stonestreet: Who Killed the Centerfold Model?
(TV Movie)
As
a young actress Eden made featured appearances on television shows
such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (as "Barbara
Morehead" and "Barbara Huffman"), The West Point
Story, Highway Patrol, Private Secretary, I Love Lucy, The
Millionaire, Target: The Corruptors!, Crossroads, Gunsmoke, December
Bride, Perry Mason, Bachelor Father, Father Knows Best, Adventures in
Paradise, The Andy Griffith Show (above right), Cain's Hundred,
Saints and Sinners, The Virginian, Slattery's People, The Rogues, and
the series finale of Route 66 playing the role of Margo.
The
following year, she played in a supporting role as Lt. Cathy Connors
in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (pictured above
giving co-star and real-life husband Michael Ansara a tense look).
After
various brunette starlets and beauty queens unsuccessfully tried out
for the role she was approached by Sheldon who had seen her in The
Brass Bottle and had been recommended by various colleagues. Eden
played Jeannie, a beautiful genie set free from her bottle by
astronaut and United States Air Force captain (later major) Anthony
Nelson, played by Larry Hagman. Bill Daily played Nelson's best
friend and fellow astronaut Roger Healey. Hagman would go on to play
ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1980s prime time television
soap opera Dallas, while Daily donned another uniform as a commercial
airline navigator and later a co-pilot, as Howard Borden on The Bob
Newhart Show. On The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary reunion show
in 1991, the show's characters analyzed Bob's dream from the Newhart
finale, where that show ended with Bob waking up in bed with Suzanne
Pleshette, his wife from the Bob Newhart Show. At one point Howard
recalled, "I had a dream like that once. I dreamed I was an
astronaut in Florida for five years," as scenes from I Dream of
Jeannie featuring Bill Daily as Roger Healey were shown.
The
series became hugely popular during decades of syndication and has
had two spin-off reunion movies. The first, I Dream of Jeannie: 15
Years Later a 1985 television movie (left), starred all the original
cast excluding Larry Hagman, who was unavailable due to the shooting
schedule of his then-current series, "Dallas". The role of
Anthony Nelson was played by Wayne Rogers for this film only. The
second television spin-off movie of the series aired in 1991 and was
called I Still Dream of Jeannie, in which Hagman was still absent,
Anthony Nelson doesn't appear in this film at all. There was talk of
a third I Dream of Jeannie movie but, with the death of Larry Hagman,
no projects have been cast or even written.
In
1977 Barbara Eden played Liz Stonestreet, a ex- policewoman turned
private detective who investigates the disappearance of a missing
heiress, in a critically acclaimed TV movie Stonestreet: Who Killed
The Centerfold Model?.
In
1990, Eden had a recurring role of a billionairess seeking revenge
against J. R. Ewing in five episodes of the final season of Dallas,
playing the captivating character Lee Ann De La Vega, reuniting her
with her I Dream of Jeannie costar Hagman. In her final episode, the
character admits that her maiden name was "Lee Ann Nelson",
which was a production gag, as "Nelson" was the surname of
Hagman's character, and Eden's character's married name, in I Dream
of Jeannie.
From
2000 until 2004, Eden starred in the national touring production of
the play, The Odd Couple ... The Female Version, playing the role of
Florence Unger opposite Rita MacKenzie as Olive Madison.
Barbara
wrote a memoir, Jeannie Out of the Bottle, which was released on
April 5th, 2011 by Crown Archetype, a division of Random House.
Chronicling Eden's personal life and Hollywood career of more than 50
years, the book debuted at #14 on the New York Times Best Seller
List. "Jeannie Out of the Bottle" includes intimate details
about Barbara's early childhood, her rise to popularity in her teens
and early twenties, her costars over the years, as well as Eden's
work leading up to and during I Dream of Jeannie. Also covered are
her three marriages (to Michael Ansara from 1958 to 1974, Charles
Fegert from 1977 to 1982, and Jon Eicholtz from 1991 to the present)
and her "emotional breakdown" following the death of her
only child, Matthew Ansara, from a drug overdose.
