Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [64]
Performing live had some downsides I’d never expected. On one dreadful occasion, performing at a hotel in Arizona, I received a threatening letter telling me that if I didn’t stand outside a particular church in town at a particular time, I would die. Initially I tried to ignore the letter and even was stupid enough to try to tell myself to “rise above it.” But then my common sense took over and I told my manager about the letter. He called the police, and in a flash guards were posted outside my dressing room and my hotel room, and bodyguards followed me wherever I went, day and night, which was a great relief. But the police still viewed the death threat against me with extreme seriousness. So at the appointed time, a policewoman who bore a strong resemblance to me was sent to stand outside the church. Thank the Lord, the stalker never materialized and I never heard from him again.
Another time, I was in Switzerland on a PR trip with my close friend Dolores Goldstein, whose son went to school with my son, Matthew. While we were there, Dolores, who was screening my phone calls, took what seemed like a harmless call from a young man who seemed to know various people who worked for me (including my manager and some of his office employees). He said that he had just graduated from college with honors, and would I be so kind as to autograph a picture of myself for him and mail it to him?
It was a sweet, innocent request. At the time I thought nothing of it, and so I wrote on the photo, “I am so happy you did so well at college. You deserve it.”
A few weeks later, Dolores got a call at the Showboat, in Atlantic City, where I was doing my act, asking if she knew the young man who had asked for the picture. To her consternation, Dolores was told that he was at the hotel and had insisted not only that he knew me but also that he knew many people who worked or traveled with me, including her.
According to the police, he kept demanding to see me. He was behaving extremely suspiciously and insisting that I knew him. As proof, he handed the police the picture I had signed. Much later, it finally dawned on me that the autograph did give the impression that we knew each other well. I’d been set up.
At the time, though, Dolores didn’t want to frighten me, so she said nothing to me about the young man. Instead, she assured the police that neither she nor I nor anyone else in my employ knew him. She was shocked when the police asked her to go downstairs, where the young man was in custody, and walk past him. Their argument was that if his face lit up with recognition when he saw her, his story would be proved true. But if he gave no sign whatsoever of knowing Dolores, the police would know that he was as suspect as she had said he was.
With a great many misgivings, and without telling me, Dolores walked past the young man. Seeing her, he didn’t give even a flicker of recognition. So the police threw him out of the hotel, and Dolores, believing that the situation had been defused, didn’t tell me that anything had happened.
However, a couple of days later, she and I were having dinner in the hotel restaurant when she received a call from the police warning us that the young man had somehow eluded security and snuck back into the hotel. At that point, Dolores came clean and told me the truth. The police promptly whisked us out the back door of the restaurant and up into my suite. From then on, I had twenty-four-hour security and was glad of it.
Performing in front of a live audience can have its fair share of surprises.
I played on the same bill as the brilliant comedian Shecky Greene for three years at the MGM Grand. One evening my act seemed to go exceptionally well, and the audience gave me a rousing ovation. Afterward, feeling tired but happy, I stayed in the wings to watch Shecky’s hilarious routine, the way I always did.
Shecky was always upbeat and genial after he finished his act. But that night when he