Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [41]
My appearance on the show was a radical departure from Rawhide’s usual classic cowboy plot, as that episode had a musical comedy slant and included a fair bit of singing and dancing. Coincidentally, I had a short scene in that episode in which I wore a harem girl costume, virtually identical to the one I’d soon be wearing on I Dream of Jeannie.
However, Rawhide’s Goldie, in contrast with Jeannie, wasn’t lighthearted or humorous in the least. To the tune of bizarre tinkling music, I appear onstage in my rather provocative harem costume and do a lot of solemn pouting, wiggling, and fluttering of my rather heavy eyelashes, while the audience of cowboys whoops and hollers. Then Clint rides into the arena on his horse and stops the show.
There was more, including a scene in which I sing “Ten Tiny Toes,” but my Rawhide stint was really only interesting in that it brought me into close proximity with yet another male Hollywood sex symbol, Clint Eastwood.
Although I was unaware of it at the time, I was pregnant when I shot that two-part Rawhide episode. When my pregnancy was finally made public, Clint sent me a production still of myself as Goldie, inscribed with the words “And we never even knew you were pregnant.”
Apart from having a good sense of humor, Clint was intensely attractive, already exuding a superstar glamour. Women flocked to him in droves. He was then married to his first wife, Maggie, but as he has publicly admitted in a Playboy interview, they conducted a somewhat open marriage. Nonetheless, whenever I saw Maggie Eastwood, I could tell that she was suffering dreadfully, particularly when Clint’s primary girlfriend, Roxanne Tunis, a beautiful, statuesque stuntwoman, openly canoodled with him on the set.
Roxanne routinely sat on Clint’s lap in full view of the cast and crew (many of whom knew Maggie and felt embarrassed for her). Roxanne was obviously a fixture in his life. She and Clint went on to have a child together, a daughter whom Clint has publicly acknowledged.
During the time we worked together on Rawhide, Clint enjoyed the attention of other girls as well, simply because they constantly offered themselves to him. Every inch a man, Clint was clearly flattered and didn’t always refuse to engage with them romantically.
However, I still hadn’t come up against any threats from other women to my marriage, no matter how young and beautiful they were. Despite the fact that Michael and I had been married for almost seven years, I was still secure in his love, and he in mine.
Looking back, I suppose part of my attraction for Michael lay in the fact that although I was an extremely hardworking actress, I remained the epitome of a classic early sixties wife, the kind who existed in the far-off era before women’s liberation. Of my own volition, I even addressed Michael as “Daddy,” and didn’t feel in the least bit self-conscious or ashamed of it. However far women have come since those days, I still don’t feel any need to apologize for how I related to my husband in the past. That’s just how it was back then, old-fashioned though it may all seem now.
I guess Clint and Maggie were ahead of their time in having an open marriage. I’m not being judgmental, but that kind of marriage never would have worked for Michael and me. We were far too intertwined, far too devoted to each other. We were a team.
Talking of male-female teams reminds me of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In 1976, I made The Amazing Dobermans with Fred. He was seventy-seven at the time, sweet and self-effacing, and a consummate professional. There was no ego. He was doing an extremely small film, but he was quite happy to just sit around and wait for his call.
During a break, I mentioned how much I admired Ginger, and Fred said, “Oh, yes, feathers!”
“Feathers?” I asked, curious.
“Ginger was a great dancer,” he said. “But she had a very dominant mother who decided which costumes she’d wear in the movies she made with me. Every time Ginger and I would dance, I’d sweat profusely,