Her wish came true
Beloved actress comes home for Conservatory of Music honors
When Barbara Eden arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s, during one of her first professional meetings with a casting director at Warner Brothers, the young actress was told she wasn’t beautiful enough to make it as an entertainer. Never mind that at age 20, Eden (then Barbara Huffman) had been crowned Miss San Francisco 1951.
“He said, ‘You’re a very nice little girl from San Francisco, but I really think you should go home and marry the boy at home. This isn’t the town for you,’ ” recalls Eden. “He said, ‘You’re just not pretty enough. You’re pretty, but you’re pretty like any girl out in the Avenues.’ ”
Before the meeting was over, Eden says it got weirder.
“He then showed me a picture of his daughter and said, ‘This is what they want!’” Eden was stunned by the man’s admission, and laughs remembering how the photo showed off his daughter’s ample cleavage.
It was an extreme, but probably not an atypical, show of industry sexism in the era.
“I thought, ‘Why am I crying? I’m not here because I’m pretty or ugly. I’m here because I’m a human and I act.’ ”
A few years later, Eden became famous for her role in the 1965 TV sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie,” in which she played a mythological genie in a bottle who falls in love with an astronaut played by Larry Hagman. The show has never been off the air, and Eden’s character is now considered a television icon for her comically backfiring wishes and the girlnextdoor quality the Warner Bros. casting direc
tor had dismissed.
When Eden was attending Lincoln High School, she studied voice at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and still credits that time — specifically with voice teacher Paulina Giovanini, who Eden said “taught me everything” — as another learning experience that was foundational in her career. Now more than five decades after her breakthrough TV role, Eden is being honored by the Conservatory at its fundraising Fanfare Luncheon on Friday, Feb. 14, as a distinguished alumna.
“Her iconic work as a star on NBC television and her enduring legacy as one of the most beloved characters in situation comedy is inspiring to all of us,” says Conservatory President David Stull.
Eden was born Barbara Morehead in Tucson and grew up in San Francisco’s Parkside neighborhood (she took her stepfather’s last name, Huffman, when her mother remarried). She was the fourth generation of her family to live in the city and remembers hearing stories about her grandmother who came to San Francisco in a covered wagon and her grandfather on a clipper ship.
As a high school student, Eden developed a love of performing. When she asked the school choir teacher where she could hone her skills as a singer, she was pointed to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, then located on Sacramento Street. Every Saturday for three years, Eden would take the LTaraval streetcar toward the school where she developed her lyric soprano voice with Giovanini.
“I love my memories of the Conservatory. I’m thrilled to be coming home,” says Eden, who was last in San Francisco in 2011 for a special tribute at the Castro Theatre, “I Dream of Barbara Eden,” produced by Marc Huestis.
Eden went on to study theater for a year at City
College of San Francisco and sang with local dance bands led by Howard Fredericks and Freddie Martin. Eden also took acting lessons from Elizabeth Holloway, who ran a drama school in San Francisco. It was Holloway who pushed Eden to pursue acting professionally.
“She said to me, ‘Barbara, if you’re going to do this, you’ve got to decide, go to New York or L.A., but get out of the nest, you’re too comfortable here,’ ” Eden remembers of Holloway’s advice.
After success in San Francisco as a singer, Eden jokes, “I couldn’t get arrested in L.A.,” recalling how much she struggled through auditions and meetings with casting directors.
“For years it was really slow going,” Eden says.
Her first major exposure came when she appeared in the twoperson play “Voice of the Turtle” at the Laguna Playhouse with actor James Drury, star of the television Western “The Virginian.” Drury’s celebrity brought reporters from the Hollywood trade papers to the production, and that resulted in Eden getting some of her first positive reviews.
The coverage reached film director Mark Robson, who auditioned Eden for a role in the 1957 film “No Down Payment.” Though Eden didn’t get the part, she was put under contract to Fox. Notable roles followed, including costarring opposite Elvis Presley in the Western “Flaming Star.” Presley was then at the height of his early fame, and Eden describes him as “one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve ever met.”
When Eden was cast in the role originated by Marilyn Monroe in the television adaptation of the film “How to Marry a Millionaire,” it showed the actress off in a new way: as a comedian. Her part was the most slapstick of the main characters and required Eden to perform broad physical comedy.
Her abilities as a comedic actress, Eden says, helped land her the part as Jeannie.
While making the series, Eden wasn’t aware of the impact her character would have in pop culture. Jeannie’s distinctive pink costume, enchanted bottle and magical blinkandnod gesture performed when granting wishes have been frequently referenced and parodied since “I Dream of Jeannie” originally aired. It wasn’t until the decades following the show’s final episode in 1970 that Eden realized how much the character resonated with fans.
“People like her ( Jeannie), I like her, she’s easy to live with,” Eden says. “I’ve done enough other things in my career that
“I love my memories of the Conservatory. I’m thrilled to be coming home.”
Barbara Eden
it doesn’t bother me when people identify me with her.”
Following the series, Eden remained in demand on television and in theater, citing the role of Miss Mona in the musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” as a personal favorite. Recently she played Mrs. Claus in the 2019 film “My Adventures With Santa.”
In 2011, Eden released a memoir titled “Jeannie Out of the Bottle,” which detailed her three marriages and her emotional breakdown and recovery after the death of her son, Matthew Ansara.
At the Fanfare Luncheon, Eden is scheduled to appear in conversation with Stull and in a private Q&A with Conservatory students. She plans to offer them advice based on that first lesson she learned in Hollywood: “Be true to yourself. Follow your own road.”
“There are many roads to truth in acting or singing, but it has to be yours,” says Eden. “You can’t be a copy.”
Eden takes a pause for comic timing, then adds: “I learned that because of the guy at Warner Bros.”