Free Jeannie Out Of The Bottle by Barbara Eden Page A

was on my way to making it in Hollywood at last!

Chapter 4
    WHEN I FIRST arrived at the Twentieth Century Fox studios, I instinctively gravitated toward the warehouse in which the wardrobe department resided, where the costumes worn by Betty Grable and Alice Faye, actresses now long gone from the studio, still hung with their names stitched inside them.
    I spent hours wandering through the wardrobe department, asking questions about the clothes and the stars who once wore them, and, in the process, became increasingly aware of the fleeting quality of Hollywood and of stardom, and of the ever-present potential for tragedy inherent in both.
    Jayne Mansfield, who starred in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, was a classic example (although I had no contact with her when I worked on the movie). Young, beautiful, sweet-natured, and far more intelligent than she was given credit for by the public and the press, she was to meet her death in a gruesome car accident. It seemed to me that her life story epitomized the quintessential Hollywood tragedy.
    Then there was Debbie Reynolds, to whose “Aba Daba Honeymoon” Solly Hoffman and I had mimed. At the studio she was often on the telephone, issuing orders to the staff at her home. Very grand, I thought, secretly envying her and her happy marriage to Eddie Fisher. I could not know that Debbie’s idyllic-seeming marriage would soon be shattered when Eddie left her because he had fallen head over heels in love with Elizabeth Taylor.
    Elizabeth was signed to MGM (although she did make Cleopatra at Twentieth Century Fox, and there would be a ripple effect with consequences for me and my nascent career), and when I met her years later, I could hardly talk because I was so stunned by her beauty. Joan Collins was another great MGM beauty. Many years later, when composer Leslie Bricusse and his wife, Evie, invited my current husband, Jon, and me to their home in Acapulco, there was Joan by the pool, swathed in a white caftan, wearing a white turban, reclining on a chaise longue. Jon took one look at her and went, “Oh my God, she’s so beautiful!” I wasn’t amused by my husband’s unadulterated enthusiasm for Joan Collins and snapped, “That’s quite enough of that, Jon.”
    A Jeannie blink back to the past again: During my first few months at Fox, I experienced my fair share of disappointments. The first involved Mark Robson, my mentor and the man who had discovered me and brought me to Fox in the first place. Mark wanted me to read for the part of Betty in Peyton Place, which was projected to be a mammoth box office hit. I was elated at the prospect.
    I was sent for wardrobe tests, a sure indication that the part was in the bag for me. Then Terry Moore, who had been in Mighty Joe Young and Come Back Little Sheba and had been involved with Howard Hughes, and who had initially turned the role down, changed her mind and accepted it after all.
    I was bitterly disappointed, but fortunately, I didn’t have too long to wallow in my disappointment. Just weeks later, I finally got my first big chance at Twentieth Century Fox after all: I was cast in the TV version of How to Marry a Millionaire, the movie that had starred Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall.
    TV again!
    However, when I learned that I would be playing the part of Loco, one of the three husband-hunting Manhattan bachelorettes, which Marilyn Monroe had played in the movie version, I mentally tipped my hat to Emma Nelson Sims and her hitherto wacky-sounding predictions. It was a star-making role if ever there was one.
    At first I was a little intimidated by the thought of following in Marilyn’s footsteps, but then I gave the part more consideration and played Loco as being shortsighted. So that while I didn’t want to banish the image of Marilyn’s Loco completely from my mind while I was playing the part, I felt as if I’d stumbled on my own personal take on the character and was glad.
    In the future, Marilyn would play a more