Jeannie Out Of The Bottle (14 page)

This is what NBC decreed so as to preserve the moral tone of I Dream of Jeannie: (1) It was imperative that my harem trousers be lined with silk so my legs didn’t show through the transparent fabric. (2) Jeannie’s smoke was banned from disappearing under Captain Nelson’s bedroom door. When the series was up and running and some of the episodes had been shot but not aired, the NBC censor went crazy about one particular episode, and we had to reshoot it because, as he solemnly declared, “The smoke must never spend the night in the bedroom of a man.” From then on, if the smoke representing Jeannie ever went under the bedroom door, it had to be seen to come out again, otherwise the audience might assume that the smoke—aka Jeannie—was still in there, a definite no-no. (3) Openmouthed kissing between Tony and his fiancée, Melissa, was banned. (4) Nor was Jeannie permitted to be provocative or flirtatious. As Broadcast Standards phrased it, “Avoid the seductive and sexual innuendos when Jeannie says, ‘And I am going to please thee very much.’ It would be helpful here to have her mention some specific pleasures such as jewels or money.”

I never considered Jeannie to be provocative or flirtatious, by the way, because I always thought of her as a tomboy, not a vamp.

During the run-up to the pilot, I was involved in countless discussions regarding Jeannie’s hair, makeup, and clothes. Celebrated Academy Award–winning costume designer Gwen Wakelin created the harem outfit that I wore in the first season, although toward the very end of the season, on my suggestion, whenever it was appropriate, Jeannie graduated to wearing ball gowns and other more conventional clothes. I also picked the color pink, my favorite color, for the harem outfit, although the color didn’t really matter at all in the first season, as it was shot in black and white.

At that time, most TV shows were already being shot in color, but because the executives behind I Dream of Jeannie didn’t want to spend the $400 extra per episode, the first season was scheduled to be shot in black and white. Sidney was so outraged that he offered to invest his own money in having the show shot in color, but the executives still refused to budge.

Sidney also was kind enough and democratic enough to ask me to select which color I wanted the inside of the bottle to be, and I picked purple, my other favorite color. In fact, at the time, I loved purple so much that my dressing room was decorated in purple—purple walls, purple carpet, purple everything.

Gwen designed my iconic hairstyle by creating a ponytail with a braid secured around it, topped by a circle of velvet through which my ponytail was pulled to give it height.

Director Gene Nelson came up with the idea of Jeannie’s blink, but I realized that it wasn’t a strong enough gesture, so that’s when I got my ponytail going, and added a nod as a way of signaling a flashback or a flash-forward in time.

In every episode of I Dream of Jeannie, although the audience might not have realized it at the time, I kept a little bit of home—of Michael—close to my heart by wearing the one-carat diamond pendant he’d given me on a chain around my neck. Michael and I had bought it downtown in a wholesale jewelry mart because I wanted one so badly, and wearing it helped me feel close to him. My I Dream of Jeannie diamond wasn’t an especially high-quality diamond, but I still have it. And it meant a lot to me that Sidney and the producers gave me the go-ahead to wear it during I Dream of Jeannie.

Yet although my input was sought regarding Jeannie’s style and wardrobe, I had no illusions that the show belonged to anyone other than Sidney, who had created it and would be writing and producing every single episode.

Larry Hagman, however, was not so sure. When he got the part of Captain Nelson in the pilot, he swung into action to exercise as much control over the show as he could. He appeared in 80 percent of the pilot and every episode that followed, and later he was paid $150,000 a year for the role—peanuts in comparison to the mega-bucks today’s TV stars get paid, but an enormous sum in those days. Larry was set on I Dream of Jeannie making him a star. In a way, you could hardly have blamed him, as even before we started shooting, the magnitude of his role really did seem to merit those great expectations. That hope would fuel his actions right from the start of filming the pilot.

That was fine by me, and I genuinely hoped that Larry would satisfy his heartfelt ambitions, but as soon as I studied the script in detail, it became clear to me that Sidney had written it in such a way that the character of Captain (later Major) Nelson would play straight man to my Jeannie. It was in truth a thankless role, and Larry would kick against it every step of the way (much more on this later).

Even on the first day of shooting the pilot on Zuma Beach, Larry made no bones about the fact that he despised the script. Consequently, he decided to ad-lib whenever possible, which drove the director, Gene Nelson, completely crazy.

Gene, a former actor and now an experienced and well-respected director who had directed The Donna Reed Show (then a big hit) and The Farmer’s Daughter, with Loretta Young, initially bore the brunt of Larry’s rebellious nature.

Without much provocation, Larry was consistently temperamental and confrontational. Most of the time it seemed like he was spoiling for a fight. He was driven by the conviction that the show would be a big hit. Plus he was a perfectionist par excellence and wanted to get the pilot right.

At first, Larry’s need for control didn’t trouble me one bit. I was far too focused on the show and on making Jeannie a memorable character. In countless interviews, journalists have asked me how much of Barbara Eden there is in Jeannie, but the truth is this: none. I played Jeannie as Sidney wrote her, and if I infused anything into my portrayal of her, it was as a result of asking myself how it would feel to be catapulted into another world about which you know nothing and to come face-to-face with automobiles and appliances, objects you’ve never heard of or seen before.

I gave Jeannie’s relationship with Captain Nelson an equal amount of consideration. Clearly she had never had a boyfriend, and when suddenly this gorgeous man materializes in front of her, she is almost terrified. I say “almost” because I always felt that Jeannie was innately wise. Wise, but nevertheless still a fish out of water, in the great American movie tradition that embraces both Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

That first day at Zuma Beach, however, the weather proved to be my biggest problem. It was freezing, and there I was in my pink chiffon costume, shivering on the beach, while Larry was snug as a bug in his NASA uniform and all the rest of the crew were swaddled in wool and cashmere.

Toward the end of the day, I had become literally blue with cold, and was immensely grateful to the crew for offering me a glass of brandy—my first—which warmed me for a time but didn’t take the edge off the cold completely.

I soldiered on as best as possible, hoping against hope that Gene Nelson would call it a day. Cold as I was, I still took great pains to properly enunciate the Persian dialect I’d been taught by a UCLA professor whom Sidney had hired for the purpose (although later on, for some reason, they switched Jeannie’s mother tongue to Babylonian).

I was just inwardly congratulating myself for having succeeded, when all of a sudden a gargantuan wave hammered me. I almost lost my balance, and was soaked to the skin. I didn’t give a fig about that, though I was aware that the wave had been big enough to seriously injure me.

Apart from Larry’s outburst in the car on the way back home from Zuma Beach, the first day passed without further incident. We shot the rest of the pilot at the Columbia studio on Gower, where, despite being cocooned in the safety of a sound stage, life wouldn’t always be easy.

We were scheduled to shoot a scene in Captain Nelson’s apartment during which I was supposed to jump in the air and land on the sofa next to him. Relaxed and happy to do the scene, I blithely executed my jump, only to hit my head on Larry’s knee and crack my tooth. Blood flowed everywhere, but Larry was very, very sweet to me, as were the rest of the cast and crew.

We wrapped the pilot without any further incident. And as it transpired, it would end up being my favorite I Dream of Jeannie episode of them all.

After we shot the pilot, the producers, Screen Gems, showed it to selected audiences, and word came back that I had tested higher for approval than anyone else had ever tested.

BY THE FALL of 1964, the only tension in my marriage to Michael was our failure to have children together. Then one day in the fall, when I was in the middle of filming a guest shot in an episode of Slattery’s People, in which I was playing the first love interest Richard Crenna had on the show, I suddenly felt extremely nauseous.

I had a love scene to film with Richard, but I felt like I was coming down with the flu, and was now faced with a real dilemma. I had a quick internal debate with myself about whether to kiss Richard or not, thinking, Poor man, if I kiss him, he’s bound to get the flu from me. But if I tell the director and refuse to do the scene, they’ll have to stop shooting, which will cost the producers a great deal of money. Plus the rest of the cast and crew will have to stop working as well.

Hoping against hope that Richard, a healthy-looking specimen of a man, was in possession of a strong immune system, I held my breath and kissed him as best I could.

Over the next few days, I felt as if I were a zombie. I was tired and listless. I dosed myself with all sorts of remedies, but when everything failed, I went to see my doctor.

“This being-on-the-verge-of-having-the-flu-but-not-having-it is for the birds,” I said plaintively. “I just want to stop it in its tracks or have it and get it over with. Couldn’t you give me a shot of something that will bring it out of me right away?”

My doctor looked at me, perturbed. “I think I’ll give you some tests, Barbara,” he said finally.

Alarm bells rang in my head. “Tests?” I said.

“Pregnancy,” the doctor said.

“Pregnancy? We’ve been trying to get pregnant for seven years! There’s not a snowball’s chance of me being pregnant after all that time,” I said when I’d stopped laughing.

Ignoring my laughter, the doctor did indeed give me a pregnancy test, and following that he tested me for other serious illnesses as well. Afterward, I went home and slept for what seemed like months.

Two days later, Michael and I were delighted when we got the news that NBC had picked up the I Dream of Jeannie pilot and had committed to Screen Gems making twenty-two episodes. We were just in the middle of a celebratory kiss when the phone rang again. My heart sank. It was all a mistake, I thought. Now that the series was a reality, Sidney had changed his mind and picked Gina Lollobrigida to play Jeannie instead!

Michael took the call. My fear turned to confusion as I watched him listen, then light up like a million-watt electric bulb.

“We’re pregnant! We finally did it, honey!” he shouted.

We were overjoyed and clapped our hands like a pair of excited children.

Then, after the first flush of euphoria began to subside somewhat, we began to plan exactly how I would break the news of my pregnancy to Sidney, so that he could replace me in the show as quickly as possible.

We didn’t for one second bemoan the bad timing of me getting a part in a new series and not being able to accept it because I was pregnant. After all, we’d been trying to conceive a child for almost seven years, and nothing was more important to us than that.

Besides, the concept of I Dream of Jeannie seemed flimsy, to say the least, and no one knew if the series would run for more than the initial twenty-two episodes that had been commissioned by the network.

But I liked and respected Sidney and knew it was imperative I tell him right away that I was no longer going to be his Jeannie, so that he could begin holding auditions for my replacement.

I plucked up my courage and called him at home. He answered the telephone after just one ring.

“Glad you caught me, Barbara. We were just going out to dinner,” he said.

I took a deep breath. “Sidney, I need to see you right away. I’ve got something to tell you,” I said.

“Tell me now,” he said, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice.

“I can’t, Sidney. I just can’t,” I said.

He must have sensed my urgency, because he agreed to see me at his host’s house before dinner began.

Michael drove me there and waited in the car outside while I braced myself to face Sidney.

He gave me a warm smile—very few people I’ve ever known could smile as warmly as Sidney could—and in a moment that recalled Emma Nelson Sims and her uncanny psychic ability, he cracked, “Don’t tell me, Barbara—you’re pregnant!”

“Oh, yes, Sidney, yes, I am,” I said, and practically threw my arms around his neck. “Isn’t it just wonderful?”

Sidney, a class act to his fingertips, didn’t chime in with, Yes, but what about my show?

I tore myself back to reality.

“I’m sorry to do that to you, Sidney, but I wanted to tell you right away so you’d have time to replace me,” I said contritely.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Sidney said, “You haven’t done anything to me, Barbara. You’re staying in the show.”

“But—but how?” I stammered.

“Let me think about it, Barbara. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

The end result? Sidney came up with an almost foolproof technique for disguising my pregnancy by draping me with a multitude of veils and instructing that I be shot only from the waist up, or from a distance. Consequently, I worked on I Dream of Jeannie right up until the eighth month of my pregnancy, and filmed eleven episodes of the show during that time.

Before we started shooting one of the very early episodes, I arrived in my dressing room to discover that a red one-piece bathing suit had been laid out for me to wear in the episode. Horrified at the thought of being paraded on camera like an overstuffed elephant, I rushed straight to Gene Nelson’s office and made it clear to him that I wouldn’t wear the offending bathing suit under any circumstances.