Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [0]
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eden, Barbara, 1934–
Jeannie out of the bottle / Barbara Eden with Wendy Leigh.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Eden, Barbara, 1934– 2. Television actors and actresses—United States—Biography. I. Leigh, Wendy. II. Title.
PN2287.E384A3 2011
791.45′028′0924—dc22
[B] 2011001058
eISBN: 978-0-307-88695-8
Jacket design by Laura Duffy
Jacket photography by NBC/Photofest
v3.1
For my loving husband, Jon,
my devoted manager, Gene Schwam,
and of course Sidney Sheldon.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
1: A Magical Childhood
2: Show Business Beginnings
3: A Babe in Hollywoodland
4: Twentieth Century Fox
Photo Insert 1
5: Hollywood Star
6: Getting Jeannie
7: I Dream of Matthew
8: All About Larry
9: Viva Las Vegas
Photo Insert 2
10: Tragedy
11: Chuck
12: Free Again
13: The End
14: It’s a Wrap
Acknowledgments
Insert Photo Credits
INTRODUCTION
December 1, 1964, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
It’s the end of the first day filming the I Dream of Jeannie pilot, “The Lady in the Bottle,” and three of us—the series’s creator, writer, and producer, Sidney Sheldon; Larry Hagman, who plays Captain Anthony Nelson; and I—are in the company limo speeding the thirty miles from Malibu back to Hollywood after a long day on location at Zuma Beach, the scene of Captain Nelson’s first meeting with Jeannie.
Still in my flimsy pink chiffon harem-style pantaloons and minuscule velvet bolero, I shiver from head to foot, snuggle into my brown cloth coat, and wish I’d been allowed to keep my full-length mink from my days as Loco in the TV series How to Marry a Millionaire.
How to Marry a Millionaire ran for two years, but—although I’m happy to be playing Jeannie, and thrilled that my first day went so well—I’m not counting on the I Dream of Jeannie pilot being sold at all. But it’s a job, and I’m glad to have gotten it, though I’m still stunned that Sidney Sheldon didn’t cast a tall, willowy, raven-haired Middle Eastern beauty queen as his Jeannie instead of a short American blonde like me.
The limo glides to a halt at a traffic light, right next to a maroon Mustang convertible sporting Kansas license plates and driven by an elderly man and his middle-aged wife.
Without any warning, Larry rolls down the limo window, leans out, and to my utter amazement yells at the couple, “Someday I’m going to be a star! Someday you’re going to know who I am!”
When I recover from my surprise, I think, A star! Why in the blazes would he—or anyone else, for that matter—ever want to be a star?
I blink my Jeannie-style blink and flash back two years to April 10, 1962, on the sound stage at Twentieth Century Fox, where I am filming Five Weeks in a Balloon with Red Buttons, and Marilyn Monroe is filming Something’s Got to Give on sound stage 14, which is adjacent to mine. Evie—Evelyn Moriarty, my stand-in since I first arrived at Fox in 1957, and Marilyn’s as well—announces in her inimitable twang, “Barbara, my other star has asked to meet you!”
I know she means Marilyn Monroe, because that’s how she always refers to her, and I am both thrilled and curious to meet Marilyn at last. After all, Evie has been confiding in me about her for years. So although I am dressed for the movie like a clown in baggy plaid pants and a massive white shirt, when Evie grabs my hand and pulls me over to the Something’s Got to Give sound stage, where Marilyn is about to start a wardrobe test, I follow her without a moment’s hesitation.
Fox sound stages in those days were huge, like small cities, and this one is a massive cavern, with a little lighted circle in the middle. A trailer in the background serves as Marilyn’s dressing room, where the legendary costume designer Jean Louis