Step aside, Aladdin! Barbara Eden, the woman who made the world dream of genies, is celebrating her 92nd birthday on August 23, and the nonagenarian looks fantastic!
Eden–who turned fans into shameless bottle shiners hoping for their own wish-granting blonde–is still adored almost 60 years since she first appeared on I Dream of Jeannie.
But, while she was able to strike a pose and make magic happen on screen, in real life, she was unable to save her son, who died of a heroin overdose in 2001.
Born in the Great Depression, Barbara Eden, 92 as of August 23, 2023, turned poverty into luxury when, in 1956, she started appearing in film (A Private’s Affair, Twelve Hours to Kill) and TV (The Jonny Carson Show, I love Lucy).
In 1960, she played to international audiences when she cast was alongside the “King of Rock and Roll,” Elvis Presley in the western, Flaming Star.
And then, in 1965, the stunning blonde played Jeannie, a beautiful genie that was set free by astronaut and US Air Force Captain, Tony Nelson.
Eden captured the hearts of fans with her impressive portrayal of the magical creature that she played for the five-season run of the fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, with Larry Hagman playing her love interest, Nelson.
The same year she was reaching super stardom as Jeannie, Eden and her husband, actor Michael Ansara (known for his starring in role in the 60s series Broken Arrow) had a son, Matthew Ansara, who was born August 29, 1965.
When Matthew was nine, his parents ended their 15-year marriage, a strike that Eden, who married two more times, says sent her son on the wrong path, towards drugs.
The Harper Valley PTA star explained that she first noticed Matthew was in trouble in 1984, when at 19, he moved in with his father after she remarried. Returning after she divorced a second time, Eden said he was sleeping a lot and lied about being enrolled in college.
“Matthew never told Mike and me that he was using heroin—he didn’t want to hurt us. But we figured it out because he had been acting sluggish, losing weight, staying out all night. I insisted that he enter a rehab center, and I let him come back home when he came out a month later.”
The star of The Stepford Children continued, “But he started using again. The professionals told us that if your child is using drugs, he has become the drug: He is no longer your child, and he no longer has a home with you. So, I locked him out when he was 20, which was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
Matthew, who started using drugs when he was only 10, spent the next 12 years in and out of rehab, his parents connecting to help him through.
“When he visited us, sometimes he’d laugh and say, ‘Here I am, better lock up everything.’ But when he was sober, he’d tell us, ‘I’m so sorry. I love you more than anyone in the world,’” Eden said of her son, who often stole their property when he visited.

Barbara Eden, US actress, in costume in a publicity portrait for the US television series, ‘I Dream of Jeannie’, circa 1967. The sitcom starred Eden as ‘Jeannie’. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
During a brief remission when he was 27, Matthew married and studied creative writing at UCLA, but “the cycle began again,” and his wife left.
Recalling when things turned for the worse, Eden said she confronted her son, and “he got angry, threw things and stomped out.” Finding Matthew after a months-long search, Eden learned he’d spent most of the time living on the streets.