Looking back on the life of Barbara Eden
Born in the Great Depression, Barbara Eden, 92 as of August 23, 2023, turned poverty into luxury when, in 1956, she started appearing in film (A Private’s Affair, Twelve Hours to Kill) and TV (The Jonny Carson Show, I love Lucy).
And then, in 1965, the stunning blonde played Jeannie, a beautiful genie that was set free by astronaut and US Air Force Captain, Tony Nelson.
Step aside, Aladdin! Barbara Eden, the woman who made the world dream of genies, is celebrating her 92nd birthday on August 23, and the nonagenarian looks fantastic!
Eden–who turned fans into shameless bottle shiners hoping for their own wish-granting blonde–is still adored almost 60 years since she first appeared on I Dream of Jeannie.
But, while she was able to strike a pose and make magic happen on screen, in real life, she was unable to save her son, who died of a heroin overdose in 2001.
Born in the Great Depression, Barbara Eden, 92 as of August 23, 2023, turned poverty into luxury when, in 1956, she started appearing in film (A Private’s Affair, Twelve Hours to Kill) and TV (The Jonny Carson Show, I love Lucy).
And then, in 1965, the stunning blonde played Jeannie, a beautiful genie that was set free by astronaut and US Air Force Captain, Tony Nelson.
The same year she was reaching super stardom as Jeannie, Eden and her husband, actor Michael Ansara (known for his starring in role in the 60s series Broken Arrow) had a son, Matthew Ansara, who was born August 29, 1965.
When Matthew was nine, his parents ended their 15-year marriage, a strike that Eden, who married two more times, says sent her son on the wrong path, towards drugs.
The Harper Valley PTA star explained that she first noticed Matthew was in trouble in 1984, when at 19, he moved in with his father after she remarried. Returning after she divorced a second time, Eden said he was sleeping a lot and lied about being enrolled in college.
“Matthew never told Mike and me that he was using heroin—he didn’t want to hurt us. But we figured it out because he had been acting sluggish, losing weight, staying out all night. I insisted that he enter a rehab center, and I let him come back home when he came out a month later.”