Aladdin, step aside! Barbara Eden, the woman who made the world dream of genies, celebrates her 92nd birthday on August 23, and she looks great! Eden, who transformed devotees into shameless bottle shiners wishing for their own wish-granting blonde, is still revered over 60 years after her debut appearance on I Dream of Jeannie. However, while she could strike a pose and create enchantment on screen, she was unable to save her son, who died of a drug overdose in 2001.
Barbara Eden, who will be 92 on August 23, 2023, began performing in film (A Private’s Affair, Twelve Hours to Kill) and television (The Jonny Carson Show, I Love Lucy) in 1956, turning poverty into luxury. In 1960, she starred alongside the “King of Rock and Roll,” Elvis Presley, in the western Flaming Star, in front of international audiences. Then, in 1965, the attractive blonde played Jeannie, a beautiful genie freed by astronaut and US Air Force Captain Tony Nelson.
Eden won over admirers with her portrayal of the mythical creature she played during the five seasons of the fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, which starred Larry Hagman as her love interest, Nelson. Eden and her husband, actor Michael Ansara (well known for his part in the 1960s series Broken Arrow), had a son, Matthew Ansara, on August 29, 1965, the same year she rose to super popularity as Jeannie.
When Matthew was nine years old, his parents broke their 15-year marriage, a blow Eden, who married twice more, claims sent her son down the wrong path, into drugs. The Harper Valley PTA actor stated that she first observed Matthew’s problems in 1984, when, at 19, he moved live with his father after she remarried. Eden returned after her second divorce, saying he slept a lot and lied about being in college.
“Matthew never told Mike or me that he was using heroin because he didn’t want to hurt us.” But we figured it out since he’d been behaving lethargic, losing weight, and going out late. I urged that he enter a rehab clinic, and I allowed him to return home a month later.” The star of The Stepford Children went on, “But he started using again. According to the professionals, if your child does drugs, he has become the drug: he is no longer your child and does not live with you. So I locked him out when he was 20, which was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Matthew, who began using drugs at the age of ten, spent the following 12 years in and out of treatment, with his parents working together to help him get through. “When he came to see us, he would laugh and say, ‘Here I am, better lock up everything.'” But when he was sober, he would say, ‘I’m so sorry. “I love you more than anyone in the world,” Eden remarked to her son, who frequently stole family belongings when he visited.
When he was 27, Matthew married and studied creative writing at UCLA, but “the cycle began again,” and his wife fled. Eden recalled that when things got worse, she confronted her son, and “he got angry, threw things, and stomped out.” Eden discovered Matthew after a months-long search, and he had spent the majority of his time surviving on the streets.
“One day, shortly after they parted, he called me, sounding half dead, and said, ‘Mom, I’m sick.’ Mike’s wife and another buddy drove me to a terrible neighborhood of Venice, Calif., where we discovered him unconscious from an overdose in his apartment. Eden went on to describe his living conditions as “filthy,” “He weighed 200 lbs., but we three women got him up and to the car and took him to the hospital, which saved his life.”
At 29, he was diagnosed with clinical depression and put on medication, which did not help. When Matthew was 31, he was clean again, and he followed in his parents’ footsteps, starring in the 2001 film To Protect and Serve and playing a supporting role in Con Games, which was released posthumously the same year. In September that year, he planned to marry a “wonderful girl.”
“One day, he informed me, ‘Life is good, Mom. “I can’t believe I went so long without noticing how green the trees are.” Eden spoke. Barbara Eden son’s cause of death. Eden was awakened from her sleep on June 26 at 3 a.m. by a phone call regarding her son. Six hours before the call, officers discovered 35-year-old Matthew, an amateur bodybuilder, slumped over the steering wheel of his truck, where they also discovered bottles of anabolic steroids that he used to bulk up for competitions.
According to the autopsy results, Matthew died as a result of an unintentional drug overdose. “Then he died.” “He had shot up with an unusually pure heroin, and it was too much for his heart,” Eden explained. “Even while he was getting in shape, he treated it like an addiction—obsessively. He was unable to act in moderation. After the murder of her only child, the author and singer, who has been married to Jon Eicholtz since 1991, is still seeking answers.
“Matthew took it terribly. He wanted his mother and father to stay together. If I had to do it over, I would have waited until he was older. But then I tell myself that so many children from separated families do not develop addictions.” She added, “He won many fights. But he lost his personal battle.” Ansara, 91, died of Alzheimer’s problems in 2013 and is interred next to his son at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Eden, who replaced Jeannie’s pink harem costume, has appeared on TV shows such as Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition and in the 2019 film My Adventures with Santa, where she plays Mrs. Claus. Love Letters, her most recent stage work, premiered in 2019. First, we’d like to wish the lovely Barbara Eden a very happy birthday!
Next, we can’t understand a parent’s grief over losing a child, and we’re deeply sorry for her loss. If you know someone who is battling with addiction, please contact your local alcohol or drug abuse hotline—it could save their life.