Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [87]
When I arrived at the studio on my first day, I was shaking with nerves, not just because I would be working with Larry again after all those years, but also because when you take a role in an established series, you feel like a blundering outsider and ache to fit in with the rest of the cast, but worry that you may not.
That the Dallas producers had cast me as Lee Ann with their collective tongue very firmly in cheek became highly obvious the moment I arrived at wardrobe and discovered that my first outfit was a pink suit. Pink! Hardly a subtle reminder of Jeannie.
Larry, I knew, didn’t want to be reminded of I Dream of Jeannie. He’d made that very clear to me throughout the years, not wanting to take part in any I Dream of Jeannie retrospectives or I Dream of Jeannie–related talk shows (except one joint appearance on Today) and doing his utmost to distance himself from the show whenever he was interviewed.
So as I waited to shoot the first scene in which Larry and I were scheduled to act together, I was quaking in my pink high heels. I thought maybe the sight of me might cause him to suddenly implode.
My first entrance was scripted so that I stalk straight out of an elevator and come face-to-face with J.R. So there I was in my pink suit, the elevator door opened, and Larry cracked, “Oh my God! We’re going back in time!” I never discovered whether or not that line was part of the script or one that Larry had improvised himself. After all, this was his show and he finally had carte blanche to rewrite the script whenever and however he wanted, so I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had taken advantage of it. Either way, that line was a good one.
Whether intentionally or by accident, whether Larry had any input into it or not, the script of my episode seemed to be full of double entendres that harked back to I Dream of Jeannie. In one instance, J.R. takes one look at me and asks, “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” Looking at Larry across the set, I really did suddenly experience the weirdest sensation, as if we had indeed gone back in time together. My favorite out of the four Dallas episodes I appeared in was episode 343. Wearing a long blond wig fixed with a pink bandeau, I reminisce about how wonderful it was dating J.R. in my youth. Then I switch gears and talk about the shock of revealing my pregnancy to him and his subsequent reaction: denying that he was the father and wanting nothing to do with me.
Then I describe my horrific abortion done by a butcher of a doctor in a cheap, tawdry hotel, how I almost died, and how, as a result, I was forced to quit college. “I don’t just want to get back at him,” I declare, venom dripping from my every word. “I’m going to change his life totally, just like he once changed mine.” Melodramatic in the extreme, my role was a gift to an actress, and I loved playing it.
The shows all went well; I very much enjoyed working with Patrick Duffy, and both Larry and Linda Gray were extremely nice to me. Even better, the fans seemed happy that Larry and I had reunited, if only for four episodes.
Despite some of the more bizarre past memories of Larry, I still thought of him fondly, and was gratified that he had met with such stratospheric success in Dallas. The series would run for a record fourteen seasons, from 1978 to 1991, and along the way, Larry could hardly have been blamed for having acquired some starlike mannerisms and demands. He’d been waiting to become a star for so long and was clearly primed to enjoy every moment of his stardom.
However, I was a little surprised, not to say shocked, when my friend Dolores came to visit the Dallas set, and beforehand was briefed by one of Larry’s people that she was not permitted to talk to him unless he addressed her first, nor was she allowed to look at him.
That same year, I made I Still Dream of Jeannie, an NBC movie of the week. This time, the plot has Major Nelson spirited away into space on an extended secret mission,