PHANTOM SWAY

    • Groovy Friday – What Goes Up

    It’s Friday!

    When you hear the name Barbara Eden, is this the first thing you think of?

    Of course it is.  Unless she pulls off some kind of late career resurgence culminating in an Oscar or Tony, the first sentence of her obituary, nay, the headline of her obituary will mention Jeannie.

    I think she understands that and owns her iconic role like Shatner owns Kirk.

    But she is so much more.  Here are five things you may not know about Barbara Eden.

    • She was born “Barbara Jean Morehead” in Tucson, Arizona.  I’m sure she changed her name so as to not be confused with actress Agnes Moorehead and for no other reason.
    • She appeared in the final season of “I Love Lucy” playing a blond bombshell.  What a stretch.  Eden says she was so frightened of Desi Arnaz and his reputation as a wolf, that she ran off the set as soon as her scenes were done and locked herself in her dressing room.

    • She played a pregnant woman who comes to realize that she is having an alien’s baby in the classic 1973 television movie, “A Stranger Within”.  1970s television movies were the best.
    • In 1993, she starred opposite Don Knotts in an eleven city national tour of Neil Simon’s “Last of the Red Hot Lovers”.

    How much would you pay to see that today?

    Today’s clip is from the 1973 unaired pilot for a Barbara Eden variety show.  She rocks the nude body suit after Marilyn Monroe and before Madonna.

    Have a groovy weekend!

    Groovy Friday P.S.

    The picture of the poster for “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” is small, but I’m pretty sure that’s the work of Mad Magazine artist Jack Davis.  His work was everywhere in the second half of the 20th century.

    André Dupuy
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