Barbara Feldon (AKA Agent 99 On 'Get Smart') Wows Explorers Club Audience In New York

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclas.../#24139abb78b7

This past weekend, actress Barbara Feldon wowed a packed house at The Explorers Club headquarters in New York with tales of her role as the lovable Agent 99 on the 1960s hit TV series "Get Smart." She also discussed her career as a Revlon model, stage actress, author of "Living Alone And Loving It" and winner of "The $64,000 Question."

Interviewer Jim Clash, a fellow at the Club, started off the night by asking Feldon, now 83, about her experience on the $64,000 game show. The graduate of what is now Carnegie-Mellon University said she couldn't remember the exact question but did recall it was about Shakespeare - and that $64,000 back then was a lot of money.

From there, the conversation turned to Feldon's 1964 "Top Brass" commercial where she had perched seductively on a tiger-skin rug and extolled the virtues of a dandruff product. Asked to purr like she did in the 60-second ad, Feldon complied just as sexily as she did five decades ago. The audience responded with a roar.

Next it was on to "Get Smart," which originally aired from 1965-70 in 138 episodes. Among the many things covered was the show's unique opening. “There were stagehands moving those closing doors,” said Feldon. “It was all done manually. And when Max [the late Don Adams] dropped in the phone booth, he bent his knees and went out of sight. There was no hole, but it worked beautifully!”

When queried about whether she had a name as well as a number on the show, Feldon answered: "I wasn’t sure until I saw writer Buck Henry recently, and he said absolutely not. Susan Hilton was a primer name they used in one of the episodes, but he said no, she was just a number."

"Originally they were thinking of calling her 100," Feldon continued. "Max’s number was 86 – which means chuck it. And they wanted her number higher than his. But 100 didn’t seem like a girl’s number, so they settled on 99. I also think to the ear, 100 doesn’t sound as good – 'Look out, 100!' versus 'Look out, 99!' But I like my number. And people still call me that."

As for residuals from the show, which has aired in syndication for over five decades, the cast got none. "In those days, nobody got residuals," Feldon said. But she isn’t bitter. "The show didn't put me on easy street financially but did make it possible for me to get work from being recognized. So I was able to have a nice working career after. I have no regrets."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclas.../#1804334c5d02

[TV_on_the_Porch]

She certainly is revising the history of her number. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry have acknowledged for decades that they created agent 69 [snicker] but knew it would never get past the censors, so changed it to 99. In the 90s, Zack Smart's female counterpart was agent 66, hardly a coincidence.

[Samme]

Barbara Feldon always seemed very smart and very likeable. It's too bad she wasn't hired more and didn't land on another hit show. She deserved another series and I think the public wanted to see more of her. Buck Henry said he was often asked about her.

She and Alan Alda were a great match on very funny TV movie called Playmates. Although I liked the first couple seasons of MASH, I would rather have seen him on a good sitcom with Barbara Feldon. They had great chemistry, as did Doug McClure and Connie Stevens. It was almost like a TV version of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Probably as good, and maybe better. They all worked together surprisingly well. I wish that had been made into a series, because Alda and McClure worked better together than Alda and Rogers, and it was more in Alda's best style of acting.