Reflecting on Barbara Eden’s life
Get out of here, Aladdin! On August 23, Barbara Eden—the woman who gave the world hope for genies—celebrates her 92nd birthday, and the nonagenarian looks amazing! Nearly 60 years after her debut on I Dream of Jeannie, Eden continues to be adored for transforming her followers into frank bottle shiners who aspired to be their own wish-granting blonde.
In real life, however, she was unable to save her son, who passed away in 2001 from a drug overdose, despite her ability to strike a pose and perform magic on screen.
Born during the Great Depression, Barbara Eden (92 as of August 23, 2023) transformed poverty into luxury when she began making appearances on television (The Jonny Carson Show, I Love Lucy) and in films (A Private’s Affair, Twelve Hours to Kill) in 1956.
She performed for audiences throughout the world in 1960 when she costarred with Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll,” in the western Flaming Star. The gorgeous blonde then portrayed Jeannie, a lovely genie released by US Air Force Captain and astronaut Tony Nelson in 1965.
Fans were captivated by Eden’s remarkable performance as the mythical creature she portrayed during the five-season run of the fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Larry Hagman played her romantic interest, Nelson. Eden and her husband, actor Michael Ansara (who starred in the 1960s television series Broken Arrow), welcomed a son, Matthew Ansara, on August 29, 1965, the same year she was becoming a household name as Jeannie.
The 15-year marriage between Matthew’s parents ended when he was nine years old. Eden, who has since gotten married again, claims that this set her son on the wrong track and led him to turn to drugs.
When Matthew went in with his father at the age of 19 when she remarried in 1984, the Harper Valley PTA actor revealed that she recognised he was having problems. Eden claimed to be sleeping a lot and to have lied about attending college when he returned after she got divorced a second time.
Because he didn’t want to harm Mike and me, Matthew kept his heroin use a secret from us. But since he had been acting lethargic, losing weight, and going out late, we were able to figure it out. I made him go to a rehab facility, and when he returned home a month later, I allowed him to return home. “But he started using again,” the Stepford Children star went on.
According to the experts, if your child is abusing drugs, he has turned into the drug and is no longer your child or living with you. The toughest thing I have ever had to do was to shut him out when he was 20.
With the support of his parents, Matthew, who began using drugs at the age of ten, spent the next twelve years in and out of treatment. Occasionally, when he came to visit us, he would chuckle and remark, “Here I am, better lock up everything.” However, he would apologise profusely to us when he was sober. Regarding her son, who frequently stole their belongings when he was there, Eden remarked, “I love you more than anyone in the world.”
When Matthew was 27, he married and enrolled at UCLA to study creative writing after a brief recovery. However, “the cycle began again,” and his wife fled. Eden said how she addressed her son as things became worse, and “he got angry, threw things, and stomped out.” After searching for Matthew for months, Eden discovered that he had mostly been living on the streets. “One day, soon after they separated, he called me, sounding half dead, and said, ‘Mom, I’m sick.’ Mike was found unconscious from an overdose at his apartment after his wife and another friend took me to a dangerous area of Venice, California.
Eden went on to call his living quarters “filthy.” “He weighed 200 pounds, but the three of us women managed to get him up, get him into the car, and take him to the hospital, saving his life.”
His medication didn’t help when he was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 29. Matthew was back on track and following in his parents’ footsteps when he was 31. He starred in the 2001 movie To Protect and Serve and had a supporting part in the legendary Con Games that same year. He intended to marry a “wonderful girl” in September of that year. “Life is great, Mom,” he said to me one day. It’s unbelievable that I was unaware of how green the trees were for so long. Eden uttered