Free Jeannie Out Of The Bottle by Barbara Eden Page B

significant role in my life than I had originally anticipated. And during How to Marry a Millionaire, our lives would intersect in a rather uncanny way, the significance of which I wasn’t aware of until long after Marilyn’s death, when her personal life became public knowledge.
    I very much enjoyed playing Loco, and the series was a success. In November 1957, the producers of How to Marry a Millionaire sent me, Merry Anders, and Lori Nelson, the two other bachelorettes, to Manhattan to promote the series. As it was winter and the temperatures had plunged, they thoughtfully rented a full-length mink coat for each of us.
    At the end of the tour, I was at Idlewild (as John F. Kennedy International Airport was then known), waiting for my flight to be called and about to buy some candy, when a dark, heavyset man sidled up to me and abruptly asked me whom I was with.
    Startled, I said, “Booker McClay.” Booker was Twentieth Century Fox’s head of public relations.
    The man strode off without another word. A few years later, I saw his picture in a magazine. The caption read, “Pierre Salinger.”
    Back at the airport, just as I was paying for my candy, Booker came over to me and asked, “Barbara, would you like to meet Senator John Kennedy?”
    I wasn’t in the least bit interested in politics, and the name Kennedy meant nothing to me at that time. But I didn’t want to insult Booker, Senator Kennedy, or the man who’d approached me in the first place, so I shrugged and said, “Fine.”
    The heavyset man ushered me into an anteroom. Only a drum-roll was missing, or a battery of klieg lights, as he declared in a loud ringmaster’s voice, “I want you to meet the next president of the United States!”
    Senator Kennedy was handsome enough to rival any Hollywood star. When he clasped my hand firmly, I looked up into the clearest, most hypnotic eyes in the universe. I blushed and looked away.
    At that moment, fate intervened and my flight was called. I shook hands with the senator again. Then Pierre Salinger escorted me to the foot of the gangway.
    As I boarded the plane in the ice-cold air, I tucked my hands into my pockets, and felt something in the left one. I pulled out a small piece of gray notepaper. Written on it were the initials “JFK” and a phone number.
    Without any hesitation, I tore it up on the spot and handed the pieces to the stewardess to put in the trash.
    I never once regretted it. The truth is that I wasn’t even momentarily tempted by one of the most glamorous, charismatic, sexually alluring men who ever lived.
    For I’d already met the man of my dreams. And nothing and no one, not even John F. Kennedy in his glittering prime, ever would have succeeded in leading me astray, because I was wildly, utterly, and completely enthralled by my very own Mr. Right, Michael Ansara.
    As far as I—and thousands of fans and love-struck female fans throughout the world—was concerned, Michael Ansara was a magnificent specimen of alpha-male masculinity. Six foot four and darkly handsome, with blazing brown eyes, a deep, resonant voice, and a powerful aura of strength and dependability, Michael was a Hollywood heartthrob with sex appeal to burn.
    He was born in Lebanon but came to America with his parents when he was two years old. He grew up in New England, where he lived until he was twelve. Initially he had wanted to become a doctor, but the theater beckoned, and he joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where his fellow students included Charles Bronson (who was to become a close friend), Aaron Spelling of Dynasty and Beverly Hills 90210 fame, and sultry brunette actress Carolyn Jones. Down the line, with his dark, strong good looks, Michael would frequently be typecast in biblical epics, and he appeared in The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Robe. Ironically, the first time I saw him on the screen, in Julius Caesar, he aroused my interest only because he had the same last name as my first