by Barbara Eden
To be fair to Larry, he wasn’t the cause of every single solitary drama out of all the many that unfolded on the I Dream of Jeannie set. One good example was during season three, while we were shooting “Genie, Genie, Who’s Got the Genie,” which aired on January 16, 1968. My mother visited the set for the very first time, and saw me locked into the interior of a safe, with only a gigantic lipstick and a purse for company.
All of a sudden, a flat from the set fell across the safe. Only quick thinking by a crew member saved me from being hit by it. We started the scene again, but then the lipstick toppled over and practically knocked me out.
My mother, watching, gave a big start and said, “Barbara, I never knew that making a TV series was so dangerous!” Of course she didn’t. She hadn’t witnessed Larry in full flight yet.
In his memoirs, Larry claimed not to be able to remember the I Dream of Jeannie years, but I find that difficult to believe, given the high-octane quality of his explosive on-set shenanigans.
On one unforgettable occasion, when Larry didn’t like a particular script, his answer was to throw up all over the set. Nerves? Method acting? I didn’t stick around long enough to find out, but took refuge in the sanctuary of my dressing room instead.
In many ways, Larry was like a very talented, troubled child whose tantrums sometimes got the better of his self-control. The crew, however, quickly lost patience with him and vented their frustration by cutting him dead as often as possible and tormenting him however and whenever they could. Once when Larry demanded a cup of tea (as opposed to his habitual champagne), the crew, exasperated by his high-handedness and demands that a scene be reshot because he didn’t like that particular segment of the script, put salt in his tea instead of sugar.
When the unsuspecting Larry took a sip and spat the tea out in disgust, the entire set rocked with suppressed laughter from the delighted crew, who probably would have applauded if they could have, they so enjoyed humiliating poor Larry.
But when it came to Gene Nelson, to whom Larry had taken an instant dislike when we shot the pilot, Larry hit out hard and often. And as much as I tried to avoid becoming involved in their clash, it was patently obvious that there was a lot of nastiness flying back and forth between the two of them during the early days of filming I Dream of Jeannie.
I was very secure in what I was doing in terms of my portrayal of Jeannie, and whenever a battle between Larry and Gene appeared to be on the horizon, I just hid away in my dressing room, as this was the only way I could survive the storms and conflicts that regularly raged on set. In fact, I retreated into my dressing room so often that many times I honestly didn’t know what was brewing on the set.
Pretty soon, though, I made the unpleasant discovery that I was no longer able to remain above the fray. Larry’s machinations created a situation that made it impossible for me to continue trying to rise above anything to do with I Dream of Jeannie.
After the first few episodes were aired on national TV, Larry demanded an audience with Sidney Sheldon, during which he complained, “Barbara is so little and so cute, and people keep coming up to me and asking how come I get so angry with this cute little thing. I look like I’m the bad guy, and I didn’t sign on for that!”
When you consider Larry’s iconic portrayal of J. R. Ewing, one of TV’s all-time most memorable villains, his objections to being portrayed as the bad guy in I Dream of Jeannie now seem rather laughable. At the time, however, the issue was very important to him. So Sidney Sheldon called me into his office.
“Barbara, I’ve decided to change Jeannie’s character a bit, and have her take charge more. I want you to be stronger,” he announced.
“Stronger?” I said.
“Be stronger, Barbara, be stronger,” Sidney replied.
Well, I’m an actress, and I believe I can play the strong woman (on- and offstage, as it happens) as well as any other actress in the business. No problem whatsoever. So, at Sidney’s behest, strong I became, and I made a concerted effort to make Jeannie far more acerbic and willful than in the pilot and the few other episodes already aired.
When my two “strong” I Dream of Jeannie episodes were tested in front of a focus group, to my amusement word quickly came back to the producers that not one member of the focus group liked the new, stronger Jeannie. As a result, Sidney threw up his hands and told me to go back to playing Jeannie the way I’d played her in the first place!
As for the two “strong” episodes we’d already made, because I was on maternity leave at the time, a much sweeter (in my opinion much too sweet) voice was dubbed over mine, and Jeannie was restored to her original persona.
Nonetheless, there were more clashes to come. Gene Nelson was a good friend of mine, and I liked and respected Larry as an actor, though his shifting moods and off-camera theatrics (arriving for work in a gorilla suit, for one) grew wearying. But it was clear that a showdown between Gene and Larry was imminent.
Unbeknownst to me, Larry decided to precipitate that showdown by issuing an ultimatum to Sidney: “Either Gene goes or I do.”
Sidney, an intensely clever man, prevaricated. Then, without putting it in so many words, he threw down the gauntlet at my feet.
He invited me into his office and, after telling me that Jorja (his wife) sent her best and asking after my family, he got to the point. “Barbara, how would you feel if we replaced Larry?”
Now, I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes, but I did know one thing: no matter how anarchic Larry might be or how much the crew might detest him, when that camera rolled, he was there. He didn’t have to be my best pal, just a good actor. And he definitely was that.
So I answered Sidney’s question the only way I could. “Sidney, I feel it would be a big mistake to replace Larry. He really does his job, once the camera is rolling.”
Before I knew it, Gene Nelson was out the door, without further ado. In all, he directed just eight episodes of I Dream of Jeannie. It must, however, be said that during the short period in which he directed the show, he stamped his indelible imprint on it. His contribution should never be underestimated, and I said as much at the time. But nothing could salvage my relationship with him. He never forgave me for siding with Larry, which was how he saw it, and he never talked to me again. Larry had gotten what he wanted.
One of the results of Larry’s power play with Sidney was that he followed Sidney’s advice to try to calm down while shooting I Dream of Jeannie. To that end, Sidney arranged for Larry to see a therapist, and, reluctantly or not, Larry went along with the idea. However, in keeping with the anything-goes ethos of the early sixties, the therapist ostensibly advised Larry to smoke pot and drink champagne on the set, to help himself relax.
Larry, being Larry, naturally didn’t do anything by half measures. Henceforth, instead of being nervous, on edge, and confrontational, he started every day at the studio by drinking vast quantities of champagne, and in between scenes, he sequestered himself in his dressing room, smoking pot and downing yet more champagne, all in the interests of attaining a state of calm serenity. The result? Mayhem, as I’ll tell you.
Surprisingly, the past master at handling Larry at his worst turned out to be Jackie Cooper, the former child star. Jackie was no longer an actor and had now graduated to the position of vice president of Screen Gems, the production company responsible for I Dream of Jeannie. Whenever Larry reverted to his usual modus operandi of questioning everything and everyone, as in “Do we have to do this? Do we have to do that?” Jackie would shoot back, “Do we have to pay you, Larry?” and despite himself, Larry couldn’t prevent himself from laughing.
Larry even continued laughing when we had Groucho Marx, our first male guest star on I Dream of Jeannie (but I pity those that followed). Groucho, a close friend of Sidney Sheldon’s, made a cameo appearance on the show in season two, in “The Greatest Invention in the World.” Really, the most remarkable thing about Groucho’s appearance on the show (which was extremely brief) was the fact
that he waived his considerable fee—not out of friendship for Sidney, but simply because he didn’t want to be liable for taxes. Instead, he requested that he be compensated for his appearance on the show by being given a new TV set. He was.
Although I didn’t remind Groucho of it at the time, I’d worked with him on his own show, years before, when I was Barbara Huffman and living at the Studio Club. I hadn’t had any lines in the show, as I was basically just one of the dumb blond models he tended to hire and put in the background of the show. I was very young at the time, and my clearest memory of my walk-on in Groucho’s show is that I was wearing a big gold ring on my left ring finger.
He took one look at it, wiggled his big cigar at me, and said, “Oh, so you’re married, eh?”
I wasn’t at the time, so I shook my head decisively.
Groucho wiggled his cigar at me again.
“Well, Miss Huffman, you’re definitely sending a wrong message with that ring, then,” he said with a wink.
Fortunately, Groucho’s appearance on I Dream of Jeannie didn’t upset the apple cart as far as Larry was concerned. Larry didn’t have any problems working with Groucho, perhaps because Groucho was eighty years old and Larry didn’t see him as competition.
Generally, though, people on the set felt that in Larry’s mind, when it came to I Dream of Jeannie, he was the cock of the walk, and he definitely didn’t want another rooster on his territory. He wanted to be the only leading man on the set, and to trumpet that the I Dream of Jeannie set was his domain and only his.
So it figured that when Sammy Davis Jr. guested on “The Greatest Entertainer in the World” in season two, it brought out the very worst in Larry. Having a star of Sammy’s magnitude on I Dream of Jeannie would automatically upstage him.
When Sammy arrived on the set for the first time, intensely professional, friendly, and cheerful, I knew better than to mention the fact that I’d been in the chorus at Ciro’s and that he’d sent an emissary to invite me out on a date.
Sammy was bright and funny, and we laughed a lot together. When I alluded to the news that although some black-and-white photos had been taken of us, they were now going to shoot some more, this time in color, he joked, “So now you’re starting with all that racial stuff.”
So far, so good. But when Larry strolled onto the set, you could immediately tell that Sammy was in for big trouble. Larry started by ordering Sammy around and telling him where to stand. Sammy, his own man in every sense of the term, was far from amused by Larry’s overbearing manner.
It came time to shoot Sammy’s most important scene, which required Larry to feed him his lines from off camera. As Sammy started saying his lines, Larry expressed his feelings about him in no uncertain terms by opening his mouth and letting loose a long, thick string of drool. I was in the scene and, against my will, couldn’t help being mesmerized by the sight. Sammy, however, took it as a personal insult, which, of course, it was intended to be.
Quite understandably, he was incandescent with rage. He slammed off the set and shouted, “If I ever have to see that —— again, I’ll kill him.” Sammy was a big star, probably the biggest star who would ever guest on I Dream of Jeannie, and after a hurried, whispered conference, the director, Claudio Guzman, hustled Larry off the set and had someone other than Larry read Sammy his lines.
Afterward, Sammy took me aside and asked, “How in the hell do you work with this guy, Barbara? He’s a total asshole.”
Sammy’s words, not mine.
Legendary comedian Milton Berle was one of the I Dream of Jeannie guest artists in Hawaii, where we shot “The Second Greatest Con Artist in the World” for season three. By now, Larry was well established in the series and popular with the public, and so he felt safe flexing his muscles even further, flatly refusing to appear in the show with Milton. Which was probably just as well, because had Larry provoked him, Milton might well have resorted to his favorite party trick, exposing himself. His, um, endowment was rumored to be impressive, but I can’t confirm that from personal experience. However, I do remember being unnerved when I caught sight of his bare feet. (And not because of the size!)
In the tropical Hawaii heat, most of us went barefoot whenever possible, but when Milton did, I couldn’t help noticing that all his toes were crunched up. I didn’t say a word, but he caught my expression and volunteered, “I was the last of six kids, Barbara, so I always got the smallest pair of shoes.”
I wasn’t quite sure that I had completely grasped the logic of that remark. But from then on, I understood why, during the shoot, Milton kept changing from one elegant, expensive pair of shoes to another pair that was even more elegant and expensive. As they say, you can take the star out of poverty, but you can never take poverty out of the star.
Nor can you take the bluntness out of someone who is congenitally blunt. At that time, Larry was probably the least diplomatic actor on the planet and would openly tell Sidney how much he hated his scripts.
Looking back, I don’t think Sidney could have written I Dream of Jeannie any other way. The show was fantasy, light and fun entertainment—we weren’t intending to be didactic in any way or Shakespearean in either language or scope.
Larry, however, was aiming higher and wasn’t going to be satisfied by the perfectly serviceable scripts Sidney continued to churn out. Consequently, he let out his ire not just on celebrities but also on harmless “civilians” visiting the I Dream of Jeannie set. I’ve recounted the story about the nuns, so it followed that when I took the risk of inviting my mother to visit me on the set, I was terrified at the thought of what Larry might pull while she was there. At first he was at his most charming (and Larry is quite a charmer when he chooses to be). Then, all of a sudden, he cut her dead, and didn’t speak to her again the entire day.
Hayden Rorke, who played Dr. Alfred Bellows in the series, was the one person involved with I Dream of Jeannie other than Jackie Cooper who could actually handle Larry. Our resident on-set terror, it transpired, actually respected Hayden in his own right, partly because Hayden was a friend of his mother, Mary Martin. Hayden even went so far as to tear into Larry for not bothering to read his script until the eleventh hour. Larry wouldn’t have accepted that kind of a reprimand from anyone else, certainly not me. But he took Hayden’s rebuke without complaining, because he respected him to such a high degree.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Hayden came from a distinguished theatrical family. His grandfather was the well-known producer William Richardson Hayden, and his mother was an actress who later switched careers and built a business in textiles, after which she had the distinction of designing the material used in the ball gowns both Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower wore at their respective husbands’ inaugurations.
Hayden’s impeccable acting credentials started out with his training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts; he then appeared in classics with Walter Hampden’s repertory company. During World War II, in which he was a sergeant, he toured with This Is the Army, and met Gene Nelson, who was also affiliated with the War Department.
After the war, Hayden became a successful professional actor, appearing in the Broadway productions of The Philadelphia Story, The Country Wife, Three Men on a Horse, A Moon for the Misbegotten, and Dream Girl. Moving on to Hollywood, he won fame as a character actor in such classic movies as An American in Paris. The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Pillow Talk. His acting ability was superlative, and his grasp of the business served as an inspiration to all of us.
In his private life, Hayden was unashamedly gay. He and his partner, Justus Addiss, lived together for many years in Studio City, along with their menagerie of dogs. Hayden was wonderful in the part of Dr. Bellows, the psychiatrist forever stumped by Tony. Throughout the series, he remained a good friend to all of us and kept all our spirits up under all sorts of difficult circumstances, most of them caused by Larry. He was a prince, and everyone, even Larry, knew it.
Hayden’s on-screen wife, Amanda Bellows, w
as played by the beautiful and gracious Emmaline Henry, whose Philadelphia pedigree melded with her visual resemblance to Grace Kelly. Initially a singer, with a rich soprano voice, Emmaline started out in radio, then moved to Hollywood and appeared in stage musicals, including the road company of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, in which she took over from none other than Carol Channing, the star who’d attended Miss Holloway’s school and inspired me to go there in the first place.
A well-known and glamorous fixture on TV shows such as The Farmer’s Daughter and Green Acres, Emmaline also appeared in a slew of prestigious movies, including Rosemary’s Baby and Divorce, Italian Style. Late in life, she fell in love and hoped to get married, but the man in question ultimately ditched her, and she was devastated, a fact that I firmly believe contributed to her death from cancer at the age of just forty-nine.
Before that, she appeared in thirty-nine episodes of I Dream of Jeannie, starting in the second season (although she made a brief appearance during the first season as a magician’s assistant whom Roger assumed was Jeannie’s cousin). Her cool elegance attracted a great many fans and even fooled the censors into allowing her to show her navel during the beach scene in “Jeannie Goes to Honolulu.” I, on the other hand, was encased in my red one-piece bathing suit and towels and forced to swelter away on Waikiki Beach. But I didn’t begrudge Emmaline that freedom; she was a lovely, friendly lady and I liked her very much.
Barton MacLane, who played the imposing, if a little intimidating, General Peterson, started out in the 1920s as a Paramount contract player and was a veteran of over two hundred movies. In the legendary Bogart picture The Maltese Falcon, he played the police detective; he also appeared in Bogart’s classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. An unusual man, passionate about card playing (he even invented a canasta card holder), he was in his late sixties when he made I Dream of Jeannie, and died during the making of the series.
