Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [97]
I can still laugh, I can still go to parties, I can still have fun, but there’s a part of me that is missing and always will be. Matthew is never out of my mind, and the pain of losing him and of missing him doesn’t get less. Not on his birthday, not on Christmas, not on my birthday. Never. But he’s always with me. I talk to him constantly, and I will miss him forever.
SINCE MATTHEW’S DEATH, I’ve gone public about his battle with drugs during an hour-long live interview with Larry King, and I also gave an interview to Good Morning America during which I—who never cry in public—broke down in floods of tears on camera, in front of a nationwide audience of millions.
But no matter how severe the pain of reliving Matthew’s death and his struggle against drugs, it is worth it to me if, through my openness, I am able to help just one parent spot in their child the early signs of drug addiction that I failed to recognize in Matthew.
As I write this, nine years have passed since his death, and I still think of him every day and dream of him every night. I am so blessed that through it all Jon was always by my side.
Today, happily, my career continues to keep me busy in a varieity of new and challenging roles. I still think of I Dream of Jeannie with great affection, and greatly appreciate the opportunities it has brought me through the years. The show has proved very popular over the years, and luckily, some of that popularity has rubbed off on me. I became a spokesperson for L’eggs panty hose, and appeared in commercials for Old Navy, TV Land, and Guarantee Trust Life Insurance. Great fun was a commercial for the RX 300 Lexus in which I’m wearing my I Dream of Jeannie harem costume and sitting in the back of the car. All fun, and nicely lucrative for me; I was happy to do them.
I was invited to the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Las Vegas to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of I Dream of Jeannie and to unveil the latest Barbie doll: an exact replica of Jeannie. Dressed in a pink harem outfit, complete with a pink veil, the Jeannie Barbie doll comes with crossed arms, and looks as if she is about to blink at any second.
A glitzy I Dream of Jeannie slot machine featuring a logo of me as Jeannie, dressed in her trademark harem pants and skimpy top, was launched in casinos throughout America. In a cute technical trick, the machine played a tape of my voice purring at players, “Oh, that’s wonderful, Master,” or “Yes, Master! Yes! Yes!” when they won, or “Back in the bottle! Try again” when they lost.
One day my dear friend and hairdresser Zak Taylor and I were at Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City when I must have been inspired by the spirit of Jeannie’s evil twin sister. We were walking through the casino when I heard my voice say, “Yes, Master,” and saw a young man playing the I Dream of Jeannie slot machine. I crept up behind him and, just as he was about to pull the handle, whispered, “May I help you, Master? I will do that for you, Master!” He almost fell off his stool, and Zak and I nearly died laughing. But we ended up paying a price for having been so mischievous, as crowds of people immediately gathered around me and I ended up spending the rest of the evening signing autographs.
There are still Jeannie machines in casinos all over America. There are Jeannie board games. There’s even a Jeannie porn film! Who would have imagined that when the series first came out? The show and I were supposed to be so innocent—the censors actually banned me from revealing my belly button on TV!
I’ve been fortunate to have many memorable moments in my career: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a round-the-world USO tour with Bob Hope during the first Gulf War (Bob referred to the tour as the “Persian Gulp”). I was most honored to be invited by President George W. Bush to be mistress of ceremonies at a White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony, which took place outside in front of an audience of six thousand people, and to be invited to have dinner at the White House afterward.