212. Jeannie Out of the Bottle by Barbara Eden

Jeannie Out of the Bottle by Barbara Eden with Wendy Leigh (Canada) - (US)

Pages: 263 +index
Ages: 18+
Finished: Sept. 19, 2011
First Published: Apr. 5, 2011
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Genre: non-fiction, memoir, television, entertainment
Rating: 4/5



First sentence:

Whenever I hear the blare of a foghorn or see a picture of a mermaid or a young couple madly in love, I feel as if I've been Jeannie-blinked back into my childhood, happy and secure.

Acquired:  Received a review copy from Random House Canada.

Reason for Reading: I loved "I Dream of Jeannie" as a kid and really knew nothing else about Barbara Eden, other than the Harper Valley, PTA movie and brief series.  I enjoy actor's memoirs from the '70s on back in time and was intrigued to see what Barbara Eden had to say for herself.

Barbara Eden comes off as a very classy, non-Hollywood-type, of lady who has lived a rich and rewarding career, meeting many famous celebrities and enjoying enough success to satisfy herself.  She loves to work for the joy of it but she has also suffered some tragedies in life namely the death of her only child at his age of thirty-five.

Barbara tells the whole story of her life, briefly from early childhood, but mostly starting with her life in Hollywood as she tried to make a career for herself as a singer, got side-tracked as a model and ended up an actor, until she reached the stage when she could be both sing and act, whether on Broadway, TV or in the movies.  Barbara was married to the same man for most of her career on through the Jeannie years and though she has many tales to tell, she does tell all in a certain way.  She doesn't have that much to tell as she was in a faithful marriage and respected her colleagues even when they were difficult to deal with.  So we get a lot of stories of who tried to pick her up and who she turned down along with the tumultuous backstage antics of Larry Hagman on the set of Jeannie.  A classy book about TV and movies in the 1950s and 1960s with no s*x or vulgar language.  A very interesting look into this time period of the entertainment business from someone who wasn't dragged down into the drug scene.  And an insightful look inside the exciting and tragic life of an iconic woman who will always be remembered as "Jeannie".