A Good Time for Eden

[Zoneboy]

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Barbara Eden opened a bottle of sexual tension as the lead in her velvet bra and low cut pantaloons in I Dream of Jeannie.

From 1965 to 1970, I Dream of Jeannie made TV viewers' wishes come true. The premise of this TV comedy was that an astronaut, played by Larry Hagman, finds a bottle on a beach.

He rubs it and out comes a 2,000-year-old hottie. Eden played a love-struck genie named Jeannie. Jeannie had been locked up for a few centuries, so she was interested in everything, especially her master.

Eden was born in Tucson, Ariz., in 1934. She was always pretty. After high school, she won the Miss San Francisco beauty pageant, went to theatre school and then moved to L.A.

"I received very good reviews for my theatre work and a director from Fox happened to be in the audience," she says.

"His name was Mark Robson. He took me to Fox studios and they signed me to a contract."

But first, she had to change her name.

She was born Barbara Jean Moorhead and then her mother remarried and she became Barbara Huffman.

Her agent liked Eden, so that was that. Early on, she was a guest on I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball liked her so much she offered her a contract, but Eden was unavailable.

She starred with Tony Randall in three pictures, including The Brass Bottle. Ironically, it is about a man who inherits a genie. Magic was in the air, and creator Sidney Sheldon decided to make a sitcom about a female genie.

Eden had read about the show in the trade papers, but when they were casting for I Dream of Jeannie she heard Sheldon wanted a brunette because he worried a blonde would make his show would look too much like Bewitched.

Although she looked 10 years younger, Eden was 30 when she first popped out of the bottle -- and she was pregnant.

"I was very thin when I did the pilot for Jeannie. Of course, then I got pregnant and we did the first 13 shows, I looked like a walking tent."

The show directors had to use some inventive camera techniques.

One of the best things about the show was the sexual chemistry between Larry Hagman's character, Maj. Anthony Nelson, and Jeannie. So when Jeannie and the Major got married, it was all downhill in the ratings from there. "It's what killed it," Eden said. "We should never have been married, never."

So Whatever Happened to Eden? Every once in a while you'll catch her in commercials. She did one for Old Navy, for instance, that poked fun at her genie character.

Her fans are hoping she will show up in an I Dream of Jeannie movie. Kate Hudson's name has been tossed around and there's hope that if it happens Eden will be offered a cameo for that.

More than 40 years after Jeannie premiered on television, Eden still enjoys meeting the fans that made Jeannie a larger-than-life character. "Jeannie fans are the nicest people in the whole world. I have never had a stalker, I have never had a problem. I should knock wood."