Barbara Eden pulls memories from the bottle

Her first major television appearance was in a 1957 episode of I Love Lucy, so Barbara Eden gets a pass for having little to no memory of the cliffhanger episode of Route 66 she shot in St. Pete and Tampa back in ’63.

She sort of remembers that she was wearing a wedding dress – but that unexpected stop at the crown of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, when the evil cab driver threw her new husband (Martin Milner) into the bay? Her pitiful scream as he hit the water? Draws a blank.

Eden appeared in hundreds of TV shows in the 1960s and ‘70s and earned her legend status as the title star of I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70), the hit situation comedy about a bumbling astronaut (Larry Hagman) who discovers her living in a bottle. She calls him “master” and does his bidding. Hilarity ensues, followed by an unconventional romance (“Jeannie” and “Tony” were married in the final season).

Jeannie, and her memorable roles in TV and the movies (hey, she was Elvis Presley’s love interest in Flaming Star!) will be the topics of discussion for Barbara Eden – On the Magic Carpet, Sunday (April 2) at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

Eden, 91, says she has a great time doing these live programs, with her friend, Broadway star Rita McKenzie, moderating. “Basically, I talk a lot,” laughs the TV legend. “But we have lots and lots of clips of things I have done.”

She enjoys taking questions from the audience. “That’s the best part. They ask everything, and I love it. It’s fun when they ask something out of the ordinary.”

Hagman and Eden in the final season of “I Dream of Jeannie.”

Wherever she goes, mostly, they ask about I Dream of Jeannie, in which she memorably wore a silky harem outfit that exposed her navel (the stuff of scandal in ’65).

“Well, probably for many people, that’s all they remember,” Eden good-naturedly explains. “Children at that time, especially, that was a show they liked. Now as they grow up, that’s the one they talk about. I do Comic Cons, and the people come up and ask me questions about shows I’ve forgotten I’ve done.

“You know The Andy Griffith Show? I played the manicurist. On one show. And all these people can pick that one show out and ask me about it.”

They ask her about Visions of Murder, the TV movie series about a paranormal psychiatrist, and Harper Valley PTA, the films (and TV series) about a free-spirited single mom, and about The Stranger Within, a made-for-TV fantasy about a housewife impregnated by extraterrestrials.

“I alien-ated a lot of husbands in that movie,” the actress laughs. “Fans come up to me and say ‘Why did you leave your husband?’ Because at the ending of the movie, I walk off with a baby in my arms – going into the space capsule or whatever it was.”

I Dream of Jeannie, of course, has lived on in reruns – the 139-episode series was still in syndication when Hagman launched his own second career act, as villainous oil tycoon J.R. Ewing on Dallas.

Eden has very vivid memories of the five-episode Dallas arc in which she guest-starred. “I played Le Ann De La Vega,” she says, “and I really got him good. I think I’m the only one that defeated him.”

Eden and Hagman toured the country, years later, in the two-person stage production Love Letters. And audiences loved seeing them together.

Her memories of her longtime co-star, who died in 2012: “Never boring. Never boring! Larry really kept you on your toes. It was wonderful. I so enjoy working with a good actor, and he was. He was well-rounded.

“People think when you do one part, that’s it. Look at him, Dallas was totally different from my master.”

Eden, who’s been married to her third husband, Jon Eicholtz, since 1991, has outlived nearly all of her Hollywood contemporaries. It’s something she’s given considerable thought to.

“Oh, I just think I’m lucky,” she says. “I really do. It’s how the cards are dealt, to tell you the truth. I didn’t live my life hard, put it that way. I have always worked hard, but I haven’t partied a lot. I never smoked. Yeah, I’ll have a cocktail if we’re out to dinner, but that’s about it. We have never been the type to have our five o’clock drink, that kind of thing.

“I’m more a dessert person! So I have to look out. I have to be very careful.”

The enduring success of I Dream of Jeannie, she confesses, baffles her. “I would never have believed it,” Eden says. “It’s interesting, and it’s all over the world. I wish I owned it!

“It’s huge in Germany. And I’m getting letters from Poland, and Italy, and always from South America. They call it Mi Bella Genio – My Beautiful Jeannie. I can’t pronounce the title in German!”

Give her a moment or two to think, and she comes up with an a-ha memory of that episode of Route 66 after all. Still not the Skyway scene, however, but another one.

“I remember I had a very sexy little dress, pink, and all the truck drivers were giving me a bad time about it,” Eden says. “I don’t know if they were locals or if they came from L.A.”

Tickets for the Ruth Eckerd Hall event are here.