Larry Hagman was known as the character Tony Nelson on the show “I Dream of Jeannie.” His character was an astronaut. While he spent every night with Jeannie, during the day he worked for the government.
When the show started out writers made Tony a serious, and uptight character. They made him focused on his career instead of focused on Jeannie. As time went on, they wrote him to be more interested in Jeannie and in fact by the end of the series they even got married! Quite a change in character but definitely made sense for the plot.
Eden's Real Tragedy
It was well known that Barbara Eden was married to actor Michael Ansara. He even appeared in a role on “I Dream of Jeannie” as the Blue Djinn. They were married from 1958 to 1974. They had one child, a son called Matthew.
Sadly in 2001, their son Matthew died from a drug overdose. They did not make any of the details public regarding the death, and they kept out of the public eye during this time. They did announce the tragic passing of their son to the public, but that was the extent of them sharing that information. They preferred to keep this part of their life private.
Hagman Discusses His Addictions
It was very well known that Larry was caught many times drinking a lot and being drunk while he was filming. What you may not have heard, however, is that Larry has also stated that he was high on various drugs while he was filming many scenes.
Barbara Eden even shared in her autobiography entitled “Jeannie Out of the Bottle” that Larry said that he never regretted his drinking on set and his drug use while filming. He did, however, worry about how these things were impacting his health and wanted to keep himself healthy.
What Actors Thought About Thier Characters
It is always interesting to hear what actors have to say about the characters they portray. Barbara has said that she always thought Jeannie was more of a tomboy, even though by looking at her you would not think so. Larry had said that Tony was a square who kept putting his career first before a beautiful girl who was putting moves on him.
Barbara and Larry’s opinions on their characters definitely explain the reason why they did not get married on the show for so long. That being said, both Barbara and Larry did not agree with the choice of their characters getting married and didn’t think it should have happened.
‘The Mad Monk Of Malibu’
Larry was known for having some drinking problems which led to some erratic behavior. His behavior was sometimes so wild that he was known as the “Mad Monk of Malibu.” One crazy story that stands out is that Larry rode his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to go grocery shopping- as if that wasn’t crazy enough he also did it while wearing a chicken costume.
Fame seemed to be getting to his head, so he took a brief hiatus from entertainment. He made his comeback with a role on the series “Dallas.” It was said that he was a little calmer at that point.