Barbara Eden's Real Name: Barbara Eden

Quick answer: She is known as Barbara Eden. Biography.com says she was born Barbara Jean Morehead, while the Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television profile on Encyclopedia.com spells it Barbara Jean Moorhead. Each spelling rests on a single source. Both sources, along with AllMusic, agree that she was born on August 23 in Tucson, Arizona, but they disagree on the year.

Real name and early life

Biography.com gives her birth as August 23, 1931, in Tucson. The Encyclopedia.com profile, AllMusic, and a Library of Congress record all give August 23, 1934. The two years conflict.

The Encyclopedia.com profile says her mother was Alice Mary (née Franklin) Moorhead and her stepfather was Harrison Connor Huffman, and that she was later known as Barbara Jean Huffman. AllMusic says the family moved to San Francisco when she was three. Biography.com says she was a high school cheerleader and a teenage pop singer, and graduated in 1949 from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco. Encyclopedia.com says she attended San Francisco City College and studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Career highlights

AllMusic says she briefly worked as a band singer, then lived at Hollywood's Studio Club, a rooming house for aspiring actresses, and applied for every job on its bulletin board. Her first film role, uncredited, was in Back from Eternity (1956). She became a leading lady on the sitcom How to Marry a Millionaire and appeared on I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, and Gunsmoke, according to Biography.com. Encyclopedia.com lists film roles in Flaming Star and From the Terrace, both released by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1960.

Biography.com says writer Sidney Sheldon cast her in 1965 as the genie in I Dream of Jeannie, opposite Larry Hagman as astronaut Major Anthony Nelson. The NBC show ran until 1970, and Encyclopedia.com lists two Golden Globe nominations for the role. She revived Jeannie in TV movies in 1985 and 1991.

She later starred as Stella Johnson in the film Harper Valley P.T.A. and the 1981–82 series based on it. AllMusic adds Jaws 3 (1983) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996). She published Barbara Eden: My Story in 1986 and the memoir Jeannie Out of the Bottle in 2011. Encyclopedia.com notes a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Name notes for searchers

Eden is a stage surname. Searches for Barbara Jean Morehead, Barbara Jean Moorhead, or Barbara Huffman all refer to the same actress. Biography.com says her first husband was actor Michael Ansara, married in 1958 and divorced in 1974. Biography.com, Encyclopedia.com, and AllMusic agree that she was born on August 23 in Tucson, Arizona.