{"id":8646,"date":"2016-08-23T14:48:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T14:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8646"},"modified":"2017-06-20T13:36:37","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T13:36:37","slug":"jeannie-barbara-eden-dreamed-of-being-a-tv-cop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8646","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Jeannie\u2019 Barbara Eden dreamed of being a TV cop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jeannie<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 Barbara Eden, who turns 85 today, is remembered most fondly as the sexy genie in the Sixties sitcom \u201cI Dream of Jeannie\u201d but what she really wanted to be was a TV cop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a marvelous idea for a female police officer,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt really would have been terrific, an hour show that incorporated comedy and the usual cop-show thing. I thought it could very clever, funny and good for me. It was a cute idea because she was a fish out of water in a man\u2019s element and she often achieved her goals by using unorthodox methods, which gave us good comic material.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was in the early Seventies and ABC executives were afraid it wouldn\u2019t work: \u201cThey said no policewoman would have blonde hair or fit her uniform, \u2018absolutely not, it would not be believable\u2019. Then Angie Dickinson came along on NBC (\u201cPolice Woman\u201d) and proved them wrong. I guess NBC had more courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"harpervalleypta<\/a><\/p>\n

When I interviewed the vivacious star in 1981, she was about to do the TV series, \u201cHarper Valley P.T.A.\u201d based on the 1978 movie of the same title in which she played a single mother who shakes up the pious leaders of a small town by revealing their secrets. It was drawn from a country song written by Tom T. Hall that was a major hit for Jeannie C. Riley in 1968.<\/p>\n

\"Jeanie<\/a>Eden had become famous as the mischievous Jeannie opposite Larry Hagman (left) in the Sidney Sheldon fantasy comedy series that ran for 139 episodes from 1965. Fans of the show will recall that the suits at NBC at the time were scared to death that in her skimpy, silky costume, Eden would show off her belly-button: \u201cIt started out as a joke and I didn\u2019t realise what a snowball it would become. I was always dressed. My belt was at the waist, at the normal waistline, so you didn\u2019t see my navel. I guess we really were square here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texas-born actress and singer had already done a lot of TV from \u201cPerry Mason\u201d to \u201cGunsmoke\u201d to \u201cFather Knows Best\u201d and she starred with Merry Anders in 52 editions of the syndicated sitcom \u201cHow to Marry a Millionaire\u201d 1957-59. She played opposite Elvis Presley in one of the few of his films worth watching, Don Siegel\u2019s 1960 western \u201cFlaming Star\u201d and\u00a0 made her first foray into sci-fi in Irwin Allen\u2019s \u201cVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea\u201d with Walter Pidgeon and Joan Fontaine in 1961.<\/p>\n

Her favourite pictures at the time were two she worked on with stop-motion pioneer George Pal, first in \u201cThe Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm\u201d, which he directed with Henry Levin in 1962. \u201cI have very fond memories and a wonderful feeling for \u2018Brothers Grimm\u2019,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt was a great experience, it really was. It was MGM doing things well and George, it was just all the way around a good experience. Then I worked with him again on \u20187 Faces of Dr. Lau\u2019 (1964) with Tony Randall, also at MGM. I was very proud of that picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raised in San Francisco in a musical family, Eden had studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and then she won a scholarship at the city\u2019s Elizabeth Holloway School of Theatre. She\u2019s had a very steady TV career despite divorces and family tragedy and has been busy as recently as 2009 in the TV movie \u201cAlways and Forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara_Eden<\/a>She also used to do USO shows (pictured right in 1987) and \u00a0tour regularly in plays and musicals such as \u201cBlithe Spirit\u201d, \u201cThe Sound of Music\u201d, \u201cThe Unsinkable Molly Brown\u201d and her favourite, \u201cAnnie Get Your Gun\u201d.\u00a0\u201cI like \u2018Annie\u2019. It\u2019s such a well-written show, so well constructed and I had a big thrill when I did it. The man who had directed it originally, Joshua Logan, came to see it and said he wanted to do a version of \u2018Bus Stop\u2019 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London but I didn\u2019t feel it would be right at the time because son was in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of all, Eden said, she just liked the work itself. \u201cI enjoy it. I like my work. I\u2019m always sad when a film is over. We have a great group of people in our industry and you become very, very close in a short period of time, and then, \u2018Poof!\u2019 you don\u2019t see anyone for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only role she coveted was the female lead in George Bernard Shaw\u2019s \u201cCaesar and Cleopatra\u201d. She said, \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do that. Somewhere, either on stage or TV or film. I recall vividly Vivien Leigh playing Cleopatra and she was so wonderful. I would like to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To my knowledge, she never did, but Barbara Eden has given us many fond memories, and one of my fondest is what she said to me at the end of our interview. She was soon to begin shooting \u201cHarper Valley P.T.A.\u201d on the Universal Studios lot, and she said, \u201cListen, come and see me on the set if you\u2019re in town. I\u2019ll share a boiled egg with you. I brown-paper-bag it to work. Our hours are so long, I nibble my lunch in the trailer and catch a few catnaps. The commissary is a long way from the set and we only have a half-hour for lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

How I wish I had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Barbara Eden, who turns 85 today, is remembered most fondly as the sexy genie in the Sixties sitcom \u201cI Dream of Jeannie\u201d but what she really wanted to be was a TV cop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,8,15],"tags":[4381,4380,4379,4382,1794],"class_list":["post-8646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-music","category-television","tag-harper-valley-p-t-a","tag-i-dream-of-jeannie","tag-barbara-eden","tag-george-pal","tag-larry-hagman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8646"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9117,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions\/9117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}