You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Welcome back to I Choose Me. We have been having the best conversation today. We're going to continue that. I have Barbara Eden on the pod, and she has so much wisdom to share with us. So here's part two of our conversation. It's absolutely incredible. But I Dream of Jeanie is having its sixtieth year anniversary. This is insane. It is such an incredible honor to be on a beloved television show like that that stands the test of time.
I can kind of relate with my ten year run on Beverly Hills nine o two one zero and people being so invested in that character that you played. I know you loved that role and you loved that show, but did you ever go through periods after the show when you sort of wanted to disconnect or this is so see it from that character or that show just just kind of show. Look, I'm not just that I can do other things.
Never, never, No, because I was doing other things. I think even when I worked with you, I was doing something other.
Yeah.
No, I I oddly enough because I understand people who or that, but I really didn't. I wasn't thinking about Genie because I was doing film work. I was in Vegas, I was singing. It's only it's been quite recently that I realized, you know, she's right there there she is, you know, yeah, and I'm I think she's great, she's wonderful. She's not me, but she's I love it, and it does make make me feel really really good that people appreciate what I did, that they're still looking at it.
And god, I it's it's almost like magic, okay, to to get fan mail from Russia, and you know how they do that. They they because they can't mail letters to the United States, so they send it through Poland, and I mean all over Europe. It's in France, it's in the UK, it's in Italy, it's in China. How do they do that? I mean, I you know, you speak Chinese now a little bit, but yeah, but how do they get that mail out? It's just it's I love it. Germany, lots of Germany, lots of South America.
Isn't it amazing how things have changed, how we're so global? And that's that makes me feel good, you know, you know, I'm getting a little teary eyed, because, like I said to you earlier, I've modeled myself after you and your professionalism and your spirit.
And I can see, I can see the gratitude. I can see that you lead with gratitude, and that is why you are still here while you are so still so beautiful, and you're just like you're you radiate gratitude, and I think that's a huge key to life.
Well, I agree, yes, yeah, gratitude is important to recognize how lucky you are. Yeah, lucky. But I'll get back to that. We're all a connected thing because I really truly believe in it. You can find that spirit and almost everyone around you, and that's wonderful. That's a great thing to live with.
I know, I picked a good idol to look up to. I mean, you're just blowing my mind. You brought the character of Genie to life. You took her off that paper and you made her come to life. And she had that infamous costume, which also turned you into a sex symbol. I'm telling you you were a sex symbol. I want to know what that was like. Did you ever feel objectified back then?
No?
Oh, my gosh, you are amazing.
No, I didn't, Well, come on, it's a classic theme, the genie in the bottle, Yeah, and the magic and it's uh and fun to do. I just adored doing her. No, I never did feel that although a lot of people made fun of my belly button and lack of.
You know, everybody wondered, does she have a belly button?
Yeah? We love it. The uh it's the guy at the Mike Connolly at the Hollywood Reporter, who wrote an article and he came down on the set to talk to both Hilary and to me, and then he looked at me and he said, where's your belly button? And I said it's there. He said, I don't say it. I said, nickel a peek, you know I was.
I went, yeah, you gotta charge more. Yeah, now I could do it.
So he kept coming down on the set and every time I'd walk by like that and tummy my gosh. But he wrote about it, and then the stringers across the country picked it up, and I thought to myself, you know, there are actresses that are known for much better body parts than the belly button, you know, but I'll take it. Why not? Why not?
Did you ever struggle with body image being with your body or how you felt in your body being that you were. You know, you were in such beautiful, cute little outfits all the time, and looking a certain way was really important. Did you ever feel those challenges when it came to your body image.
I don't know how to answer that, because I wasn't. You know, I still still we wonder about what we wear and how it fits and yeah that, But honestly, when most actors start working or acting or were in the lights, you know, you forget about those things. You just be the person you're being and be comfortable in them. I don't know, no, I haven't ever since that when my first interview you know that, Yeah, that showed me
his daughter that broke you in. Yeah, yeah, I know that made me think, made me think and centered me.
You know, I was thinking. I've had a lot of, you know, insecurities. I think growing up in the nineties being on TV. Yeah, it's a really competitive era. Yeah, to be a female on television, and things seem to have been so different for you in the in the sixties and the seventies, Like you didn't have those It doesn't sound like you were ever crippled by your insecurities or they didn't hold you back, and that's so admirable.
Well, thank you. I don't know. When you're talking, I'm thinking, hmm, was I insecure? Did I do? There were times perhaps when I thought I wasn't quite up to the part I was playing, But I've never I don't know. I don't think about being insecure. I just don't think about it. Now. I may know then then then it wasn't. It wasn't on my agenda. What was there to be insecure about. I mean, you wanted to work, so you did your job.
If you're talking about insecure clothing or such, no, you wear what they tell you to wear, and you have no power over that, and it's much better if you don't make a fuss.
You know.
As you are talking to me, I'm thinking about different shows I've done, you know, And one of them was, well, I with a very famous actress and everyone said, well, she's difficult. You know, she was the most wonderful thing to me. She actually came down and made my dress look better to be on the set. So so I you know, most people are are pretty good. They're they're good souls. No, I guess they wasn't.
You said it was easier to not make a fuss about things like your wardrobe boards.
It's not important.
It's not important.
Well, it's important that fits you and it fits the character. But you do it. That's why you're there.
To act and let the costume designer address.
You do their job and that's okay.
You're very easy going. You have to kind of just be like Teflon and move through life like that.
I guess. So I don't know. I mean, I don't mean that you don't have some input for it. For instance, tell me tell you a job on Genie. The first year of Genie, I was pregnant. What yes, I had gone Michael and I had tried to have a baby for so long. Finally I was pregnant. And I found out the same day that they told me that Genie was going to go on the air. So I called Sydney, the writer producer on the show, and said, I have to talk to you. I really have to talk to
you in person. And he was having dinner at Buck Henry's house, who was a very well known writer at that time, and he said, well, come on down, we'll be at dinner. So I drove I lived up in the hills, came down to his house, and I was so happy. You know, I was happy about the show too, but it was a good time for you. You're happy that I was pregnant.
Yeah.
So I sat down there with a big grin on my face. I said, you know, I'm pregnant. I can't do your show. I don't know. I couldn't keep the smile off my face. He said what I said. I just had to let you know so you could recast it, you know, he said, just just stop. He said, I'll talk to you in a couple of days. We'll see if we can work this out. Okay, work this out. Because he had to write a lot of scripts. He wrote most of the scribs, and so Gene Nelson, who
at that time was a well known actor director. I remember one time on this set, I came into work and there was a bikini on my Now, I know now girls flaunt their tummies, but at the time I wasn't flooding, you know. And I looked at it and I said, I can't wear that. And so the costumer went over and told Gene, no, she can't wear the bathing suit. And Gene, who happened to have been a very good friend of mine at the time, walked up to my dressing room and said, Barbara, Barbara, you're never
a diva. He said, what won't you put on a bathing suit, said Jean, I am pregnant. He said, well, well that's right, Okay, I'll put it on, but not for the crew. You have to come in here and see it. So I put it on, and Jean came to the door anyway, Oh, oh, I see what you mean. I see what you mean.
I mean, so you had to give him a visual. Yeah, that's hilarious.
Yeah.
And so what I did was they put me on a tire on my tummies. So then I got, you know, on to near the bathing It was a pool, like the set was a pool.
Uh.
And I was supposed to be on a floaty. No, it was a a the side of the pool, okay, the side of the pool. But they just put the a real tire, I mean, not a floating tire.
Why what what why a real tire?
Well they covered it up with towels. Why because it's a hole in the middle of my tummy fit.
That is so funny mm hmmm. And it's so crazy. The parallels are that I keep finding for us, because I too had got a show that I was really excited about. It was a comedy, and it had been after my nine oh two and oh run doing so much drama, and I really wanted to transition into comedy. And I got a job on a show was called What I Like About You. It was nowhere near I
Dream of Genie. We only lasted for four years, but I remember I did the pilot and then I got pregnant, and then I had to say, hey, guys, I'm pregnant. This is going to be a problem because the character is definitely not pregnant, nor should she be. Yeah, and we had to go to great lengths to hide that baby bump.
Oh yeah. I had lots of material in front of me, right, Are you always holding something I was always holding, like a laundry basket or you though I didn't have to do that.
I remember one scene I had to walk behind a clothing rack full of clothes just my head was above it and I was rolling it through the scene. Oh the things we do, Yeah, the things we do.
Summer is this season of love Summer Loven, Here we come. If you're old enough to remember Summer loven, You're old enough to find an I Do Part two. Listen each week as our hosts make it their goal to find you the next true love of your life. Jenny Garth, Jana Kramer, Alexia Napola, Cheryl Burke, Jen Fessler, Kelly Ben Simone, Amy Robot and TJ. Holmes are dedicated to helping you fall in love again. It's time to make it hot, hot hot this summer.
Listen to I Do Part two on the iHeartRadio app, app podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, you're starring in a huge show, the most popular show. Your character's name is in the title. It's called The I Dream of Genie.
That's you. Yeah.
Pay Quality is something that we women have been battling for a long time. Oh, so you see where I'm going with this. I'm really curious back then, seeing as your name was in the title, were you being paid the same as your co star Larry Hagman at that time?
Oh? I was probably being paid more.
Ah, yes, Barbara.
Because he wasn't known at all.
Oh, I'm so happy to hear this, And I'll.
Tell you a cute story now. That we're on the money thing. Larry was extremely intelligent and savvy, you know, Mary Martin was his mother. He knew showbiz, he knew what was going on. And he said, you know, he said, I'm keeping track of my overtime. I said, you are, yeah, he said I did. You really should, Barber, you should keep track of your overtime. I said, okay, so and
we every you know, we've worked really hard. You got some id but well, I'd be up at six am to get all the body done and then and then we worked till seven or eight at nine, So I said, okay. So I wrote it all down beautifully, and Larry would come in and say, look at the check I got. You know, overtime. I didn't get a check. You know, I guess I didn't get a check. So I told my agent and he couldn't get anything out of it.
Was Columbia's studios at the time, and so I had a friend who was an attorney, a dear friend, and his wife and his child and everything were in my friend and I said, you know, Joe, I'm not I don't know what to do about this. I've kept track and I don't think I'm getting my overtime, and he had a friend in the office, the attorney's Columbia, and he said, you know, she's very upset. I wasn't very upset. I was just curious what the heck and and so
they wanted me to prove it. So I gave Joe my little book you know where I'm putting it down, and Joe came back laughing to me. He said, Okay, no problem, but they don't understand how you knew all that your numbers are exactly what they have. And I thought to myself, they admit that they were not making a mistake. They were doing something really wrong.
You know, they were keeping a tally just like you did. Ye, Yet they didn't pay you.
No, no, So I got a big check. Because it was several years. I just kept.
Thinking, oh, this is so good. Yes, after what is it? After how many hours?
Oh god, I don't know.
I don't remember anymore. I don't remember, but I love it that Larry Hagman it suggested that you do that.
Oh yeah, keep track of it. And then he kept showing the shecks was skinny. Yeah, I'm not getting a check.
Oh gosh. The one of the one of the many reasons why I admire you. After I dream of Geenie, you didn't just rest on that legacy. You kept creating, You kept working, You kept reinventing yourself. Tell me about reinvention. I think we're all kind of doing it every day. We're always a work in progress. We can reinvent ourselves every day if we want to.
Did you in what way?
I just mean, like, say you had a bad day yesterday, you weren't your best self. Go to sleep, wake up the next morning and start again. Try again. It's a new day, and you can be what you if you can picture the woman, the person that you want to be, how you want to be known. And maybe you haven't always been that person. You're human, You make mistakes, things happen, but the next day is another chance to try again to be the person that you want to be.
Well.
I and even for acting, you know.
I think acting helps you reinvent. But as far as you're the reality and when you're not on stage, I don't think i'd want to reinvent. I want to be myself. I want to be what I am. It's uh, that would be superficial. I think you know, I love my friends, I love my family, and if there is some person that doesn't love us, okay, go away, you know. But now I don't know. I don't know why you'd want to reinvent yourself.
I guess I'm thinking more of like, for example, Madonna, from her first album to where she is today, She's gone through so many different versions of her look and her kind of what she led with. I guess that's kind of what I'm referring to.
It's kind of fun. It is kind of fun. I mean, I think good for her. Yeah, you know, I don't know. But you see, I'm not on.
The You're not a singer. I mean, like, you're not a pop star, so authenticity is very important to you and to your craft, but not me.
It's the character I'm playing, you see, So I don't no, no, I like what I am.
Yeah.
Oh all the warts, I don't care.
Yeah, all the parts, the good, the bad, ugly. Yeah. I think that's the key. Yeah, loving yourself.
Just as you are, yeah, and loving people around you, loving people around you, recognizing that, yes, how lucky you are, well, how much alike you are?
The connection? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to ask you about love and grief your life has been marked by profound experiences of love. You've been married three times, you had a beautiful son. Love is complicated. You had that heartbreaking loss of losing your son Matthew.
Yeah.
How did you choose to embrace life and your career while you were navigating those deep personal challenges in your real life?
Well, my work helped me. It did help me. I guess everyone treats grief differently. Some people allow it to pull arized them, but I think you have to push through it. You'll never lose the grief. It'll always be there, especially when it's your child. I don't I know. I went out after he transitioned or passed. I went on tour with the Odd Couple and did a long tour. And during that time we went to the film and trying to think of the film's name, but oh god,
I can't think of it. Very popular, wonderful movie. But little boys, a lot of little boys there. And I was sitting there with tears just coming down my cheeks. But things like that, you just work through it. You work through it, but you'll never forget. And you always have those feelings. You know, even now it's years ago, you know that. But I'll see a little boy and I just want to pick him up and hug him, you know.
Yeah, my best friend Adele told me that grief, she's a therapist. She said that grief is like a rock, a stone in your pocket. Yeah, and it's always going to be there. Yeah, They're always going to carry it around with you. Yeah, but you don't have to focus on it.
It's interesting.
Yes, it's so hard to do though. I think when you said your work helped you through it, I think my personal inclination wouldn't be to not work and to sort of pul myself up in my despair and you know, be just I can't even imagine that. That's on iaginable what happened to you. And I'm so so sorry. Yeah, but I don't. You are such a strong lady. Sometimes sometimes yes, sometimes I am.
Sometimes I'm not.
Yeah, but I mean, just to know that you worked your way through it, you know, that's all you can do. You can't change it. You just have to learn to live with it.
That's so hard to have your life, you know, that's all.
Yeah. For the listeners out there that are carrying grief or they're grieving, they're navigating the complicated relationship. Perhaps, what would you say about choosing love for yourself and healing after loss.
I don't know how to answer that. I think everyone has to choose their own path. Everyone has a way of dealing with their family, dealing with your emotions, dealing with you know, you have to find your own path and follow it, that's all. There's no law, there's no rule. Yeah, you know, it's gut wrenching and horrible, and you just have to live with it. We're not here to be non productive. We're here to keep going carry on. Yeah, you can't go to bed and pull the covers up
over your head. It's still there. It's still that rock in your pocket, you know. But you have to work with the rock in the pocket.
You have to learn to live with it. Yeah, Yeah, so difficult. I've both been married a few times. When you think about love now, I'm going to rush right through that. Three for you, three for me. Another parallel. When you think about love now, how would you define it in a relationship sense?
How would I define love in a relationship?
How do you succeed in a relationship?
Well, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
Yeah, but it's not easy.
Yeah, I think again, there's no rule. You take your own path and your two individuals. I don't know. You love your dog, don't you.
I sure do.
And I adore my dog and I adore my husband.
So wait, you said the dog first.
My husband would probably say the dog first. Two. We love our dog. We just love it. Get that love wells up? You know, Well, it does the same for my husband, and I hope for me to do for me. But we and we respect each other. We're not one hundred percent alike. He has nothing to do with my business. He loves it, but he's never he's not an actor, he's not you know. But but I know I like what he is. I love what he is. That's all I can say. I don't know what to say to anyone.
You just have to love them and accept them. And right, yeah, I think, yeah, that's great advice.
You have to look at your partner as an individual and not as an extension of yourself. Yeah, you know, I think that whole jargon about when you marry you become one. I feel like in a sense, perhaps, but you still are your own person.
Yeah, I've never heard that.
It's in the vows, like you know, it's like to come together as one.
I see you. I remember that you think you would after three Well, I think for you certainly do in many senses, Yes, of course, because you're you work together. Yeah, you're you're your partners, you're in business together. You know. Sure. Yeah, but you respect what they are and they respect you. If they don't respect you, which I'm sure you had happened I did too, then you see. Sorry, you know, I'm i gonna do it. Yeah.
Yeah, that's really hard when I think as women who are successful and strong willed, it's hard to be with a man that doesn't respect you or that feels as if you should take a back seat to him in some way. And it's also hard. I know you've probably experienced this, being the breadwinner in certain situations, certain times of your life. Men customarily have a problem with that. Many do, many do, Many don't. Yeah, you got to find the ones that don't.
Yeah, but.
No, I.
Don't know. That's I think that's when you're one, you know.
Okay, this is a very deep question, but I'm so curious your take on this. After you've lived this beautiful life, what do you think happens after that? When it all ends? What do you think happens when our lives end? And where do we go? What happens to us? I'm so curious about other people's perspectives on death and dying, and.
I just well, I'm just not going to do it.
Okay, good, I am here for that.
Absolutely not.
No, I'm so with you. This doesn't sound fun. No, what do you think though happens?
Like? Who knows?
You don't know.
I'm ready for the ride.
I mean it'll be exciting because we don't know.
Yeah, that's right.
Or it'll be really boring.
No, I don't think it'll be boring. Okay, good, I don't think so.
But okay, I have one last question for you. This is how I close every episodisode. Barbara Eden, what was your last I choose me moment?
It's probably every day. That's good. It's a good thing, you know you Ah. I choose to get up in the morning. I choose to have a good breakfast. I choose to love my dog. Well, I don't really choose it. I do love I love my husband. Let me see. I choose my friends. Yeah, just not me? Yeah? Is that good enough?
That's great? I love that you say. I choose myself every day, because I think that's important that we acknowledge that we're worth choosing. You know, like a lot of people have a real hard time choosing themselves and I don't want that to be the case for us. No, No, it's vital too. But you choose your husband, to you choose your children.
Yes, it's not just me.
No, but that, in a sense is choosing yourself too, because you are choosing to love abundantly, true and freely, and that is ultimately, Yeah, the best choice you can make for yourself. Yeah, what is your key to longevity?
I haven't a clue. I don't know. I just like being here, I guess, and I like my work. I still work, I think, so I have a reason to be here. Mm hmm. What's your key to longevity?
I mean continuing to do things that excite me, Yes, that push me, challenge me.
Yes, I agree.
I think that's important. Yeah, this has been the best conversation ever on it just me. I'm sorry for everybody that has come before you, but this is now officially my favorite episode. Thank you so much too.
I've enjoyed it.
I've loved every second of it. Thank you so much.
Well, thank you for having me, so good to see you again.
You too,