For the five seasons that she starred on the classic television comedy “I Dream of Jeannie,” Barbara Eden could conjure up anything from valuable artwork to an elephant with a nod and a blink.

So why did it take her four decades since the series ended its run to write a memoir about her life and career?

“Quite frankly, it scared the Dickens out of me,” Ms. Eden said in a telephone interview. “I was quite frightened of doing this. I’ve been asked several times, and it’s daunting to talk about yourself. It gets to the soft spots inside you.”

On Tuesday the Crown Archetype imprint of Random House’s Crown Publishing division said that it would release a memoir by Ms. Eden, called “Jeannie Out of the Bottle,” in the spring of 2011.

As its title implies, the book will have its share to say about “I Dream of Jeannie,” on which Ms. Eden played the mystically empowered title character from 1965 to 1970. “She’ll have a big voice in this story,” Ms. Eden said, “but a lot went on before Jeannie.”

Born in Tucson and raised in San Francisco, Ms. Eden, 75, studied singing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and won the Miss San Francisco pageant in 1951 before moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Though she’d performed comedy with the likes of Johnny Carson and Lucille Ball, Ms. Eden said that “Jeannie” was “just another job” when the series, about a 2,000-year-old genie and the American astronaut who discovers her bottle, came on her radar.

“I had been reading in Variety about this show,” she said, “and they were testing all these gorgeous brunettes: Miss Israel, Miss Syria, Miss Greece, Miss Italy – all the Mediterranean types. So I really didn’t think about it.”

The show’s creator, Sidney Sheldon, had wanted to avoid casting a blonde so as not to duplicate the hit comedy “Bewitched,” which made its debut in 1964. So when Ms. Eden was nonetheless sent the “Jeannie” pilot script by her agent, she recalled: “I said, ‘I think it’s terrific. I think it’s fun. But do they know what I look like?’”

Ms. Eden of course got the part, after a teatime meeting with Mr. Sheldon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And though the role of Jeannie called for her to wear all sorts of skimpy outfits, Ms. Eden said the show more frequently provoked the ire of the burgeoning women’s movement because she referred to her mortal host (played by Larry Hagman) as “master.”

“But I would say to them, what’s in a word?” Ms. Eden said. “What’s in a name? She calls him ‘master,’ but she’s the boss. It doesn’t matter – she’s the one with the strength here.”

After the success of “Jeannie” Ms. Eden continued to perform onstage and in made-for-television movies, and had a thriving career in Las Vegas. But also, she said, “A few things happened that weren’t so good.”

A news release from Crown Publishing said that in “Jeannie Out of the Bottle” Ms. Eden would discuss the birth of a still-born son; her relationship with a husband who was verbally abusive and addicted to cocaine; and the heroin-induced death of her adult son, Matthew.

Ms. Eden said in the interview that she was not ready to talk about these experiences yet. But she said she did not think their being discussed in her memoir would shock people.

“Life is life,” she said. “Everyone has had ups and downs, and women in particular have more or less the same. There is a sisterhood.”

She added: “I think perhaps I might be able to help some women with those problems. They’re kind of universal. They’re not things that most people know how to deal with until it happens.”

Ms. Eden, who is working with a collaborator, Wendy Leigh, on the memoir, said they had a few more soul-baring sessions planned before the manuscript is complete.

“I’ll just hold my nose and jump in,” Ms. Eden said.

by Dave Itzkoff
the New York Times