Born Barbara Jean Moorhead, on August 23, 1934, in Tucson, Arizona.
Eden was a cheerleader in high school and a pop singer as a
teenager. She graduated in 1949 from Abraham Lincoln High School in
San Francisco, California. Eden is most indelibly associated with
her role as the genie in the bottle in the long-running TV sitcom I
Dream of Jeannie, co-starring Larry Hagman. In I Dream of Jeannie,
Major Anthony Nelson (Hagman) is a NASA astronaut who finds a
decorative pink bottle on a desert island after he splashes down in
the ocean. The bottle has a beautiful blond genie in it (Eden), who
immediately assumes that Nelson is her master. He brings her home
to live in Cocoa Beach, Florida. In each episode, the forbidden use
of Jeannie's well-meaning mystical powers alters reality in some
wacky way that must be carefully explained away by Nelson. No other
person knows of Jeannie's existence except for Nelson's bumbling
friend, Major Roger Healey. Together they conspire to keep her
secret from everyone else, especially from Nelson's commanding
officers at NASA. The sitcom gained a cult following, and Eden
still appears from time to time in commercials and cameos that poke
gentle fun at her former role.Before focusing on a TV career, Eden
had parts in a series of unremarkable films in the 1950s and 1960s.
Her first film role was in Back from Eternity (1956). In 1957, she
starred on TV in How to Marry a Millionaire (1957) and after I
Dream of Jeannie's successful five year run from 1965 to 1970, she
starred in Harper Valley PTA (1981-82). She published her
autobiography, Barbara Eden: My Story, in October 1986.In 1997,
Columbia announced plans to produce a big-screen episode of I Dream
of Jeannie. Eden was slated to make a cameo appearance as the new
Jeannie's aunt. The film, originally scheduled for 1998, has not
yet been produced. Eden married first husband Michael Ansara in
1958 and divorced him in 1972. The couple had a son, Matthew
Michael Ansara, born August 29, 1965. She married Charles Donald
Fegert on September 3, 1977, and divorced him in 1983. She married
her current husband, Jon Eicholtz, in January 1991.
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