I wrote a few lines for Natalie to read and left them with her. While I was working at the studio, Jorja rehearsed her in her part.
The next morning I auditioned Queenie Smith, a wonderful actress. I decided that she should have Natalie’s lines, so I wrote some new lines for Natalie and when I got home that evening, I gave them to her.
She read them and said, “No.”
I was puzzled. “No—what?”
“I can’t read these lines.”
“Why not?”
“Because my character would never say this.”
This from a seventy-year-old woman who sold dresses in Chicago.
I argued with her, but I could not take the lines away from her and I had to write something else for Queenie Smith.
The scene went well. Colonel Chuck Yeager played himself in the episode. Natalie was so good that no one knew she was not a professional actress.
Larry had met her at dinner, so when he found out that she was going to be in the show, he jokingly said, “Ahh, I see a little bit of nepotism here.”
“You’re right, Larry,” I told him. “Fair is fair. When your mother comes to town, I’ll be happy to use her in the show.”
The network had moved Jeannie from Saturday night to Monday night. It was only the beginning. The following year it was Tuesday night. The next year Monday, and the next year Tuesday. Fortunately our audience was loyal enough to find us.
Later, after Natalie had returned to Chicago, “Bigger than a Bread Box” appeared on television. She called me the day after.
“Thank you, darling.”
“What for?” I asked.
“I’ve been getting phone calls all morning. I’m a star.”
We had shot a dozen shows and the studio and network were very pleased with them. Jorja and I were at a friend’s house for dinner when I received a telephone call from Barbara Eden.
“Sidney, I have to see you.”
“Fine, Barbara, I’ll be in the studio in the morning and—”
“No. I have to see you tonight.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
I gave her the address.
She arrived an hour later. I took her into the den. She was near tears.
“You’ll have to replace me.”
I was stunned. “Why?”
“I’m pregnant.”
It took a moment for this to sink in. “Congratulations.”
“I’m sorry to do this to you.”
“You haven’t done anything to me. You’re staying on the show.”
She looked at me in surprise. “But how—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
The following morning I asked Gene Nelson to come to the office. “Gene, we have a problem.”
“I heard,” he said. “Barbara’s pregnant. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to raise the camera higher. We’ll shoot her above the waist, cover her with more veils, and use long shots. We can manage. I don’t want to replace her.”
He was thoughtful for a moment. “Neither do I.”
And we managed to finish the season from the third week to the eighth month of her pregnancy.
There were storm clouds brewing in the east, so I flew back to New York to see if I could help calm things down.
John and Ethel Ross had found out that Patty and Harry Falk continued to secretly meet. Determined not to let it develop into a romance, the Rosses arranged for the show to be moved to California for its third season. In a sense it was a good move for me, because I no longer had to be bicoastal. But trouble was looming.
When I came back to California, I found a beautiful house for Jorja and me to rent in Thousand Oaks. I knew Patty and the Rosses were looking for a place, so I suggested that they look at the house I was going to take, and if they liked it, I would let them have it. They did like it and they moved in.
NASA was very cooperative with the Jeannie production. We toured Edwards Air Force Base and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and met several of the astronauts. Many of them watched the show and were fans. They let us use their facilities at Edwards, where I took a flight in a Gemini simulator and sampled the dehydrated food. It was terrible.
The ratings for Jeannie remained high the first year, but all was not well on the set. The problem was Larry Hagman. I planned to use more guest stars, but Larry was always antagonistic toward them. He would be sullen and ignore them, and spend time sulking in his dressing room.
He wanted to be the star and he wanted it now. It was Barbara who was getting all the magazine covers and interviews. Larry wanted to show the world that he could be as successful as his mother. The result was that he put himself and everyone else under tremendous pressure.
I was not aware of it then, but every morning Larry opened a bottle of champagne and began drinking. It never affected his work on the set. He always knew his lines and was never less than adroit. But the pressure began to show.
One morning, after a reading, I asked the actors if there were any problems. All of them said they were satisfied. When I got back to my office there was a call from Gene Nelson.
“I need your help, Sidney. Larry’s in his dressing room, crying. He won’t come out.”
I went to Larry’s dressing room and we talked for a long time. Finally, I said, “Larry, I’m going to do everything I can to help you. I’ll write scripts where the plots will revolve around you.”
And so, I began to write scripts to build up Larry’s character and make him more prominent. But when an actor is in a show with a scantily dressed actress as beautiful and enticing as Barbara Eden, it is very difficult for him to become the star.