Barbara Eden’s Magic

With 59 movies and countless prime time television episode appearances to her resume, Barbara Jean Moorhead, from Tucson, Arizona has made a mark on Hollywood. For the 70’s generation her screen name, Barbara Eden, will always be that beautiful girl in the bottle.

Born August 23, 1934, her parents divorced when she was three and her name was changed to Huffman, named after her stepfather (Harrison Huffman). Early on her agent decided that her name sounded stuffy and changed it to Eden.

Barbara was a high school cheerleader and a teen pop singer in San Francisco, California and a former Miss San Francisco. She first appeared on television as a bit part in the 1953 popular CBS sit-com Private Secretary.

This began her career opening the door to small appearances on several television shows: The Johnny Carson Show (1955), West Point (1956), People are Funny Too (1957), Highway Patrol (1957) and even I Love Lucy (1957) episode.

Barbara was first married at the age of 24 in 1958 to Michael Ansara (actor) whom was 14 years her senior. She met him on the set of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Michael had even appeared on her show I Dream of Jeannie as an evil genie but they were divorced in 1972. She had one son, Matthew Michael Ansara, whom she gave birth while doing the hit television show I Dream of Jennie (1965-1970).

Matthew died (2001) at the age of 35 of a heroin overdose in his car in L.A. Before his sudden death, the part-time actor and fitness instructor had plans to be married at his mother’s home. This left a deep void in Barbara’s life.

Barbara later remarried in 1977 to Charles Donald Fegert and was divorced in 1983.

Barbara has appeared in at least one episode of nearly every major television hit show: Perry Mason (1957), Gunsmoke (1957), Father Knows Best (1957), The Andy Griffith Show (1962), Dr. Kildare (1963), Rawhide (1963), The Virginian (1963) and she even played a seductive character on the hot prime time Dallas (1991). 

One major movie that help landmark her career was the Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978 - comedy) where she plays Stella Johnson, a single mother who decides to take on the P.T.A. by running for president.

Her later movies really show diversity from comedy, with drama and thrillers like, Her Wicked Ways (1991) and then two films where she plays Jesse Newman, a psychologist with premonitions to murder in the movies: Visions of Murder (1993) and Visions of Terror (1993).

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