Jeannie Out Of The Bottle by Barbara Eden Page A

always wondered why she hadn’t pursued a Hollywood career. She definitely had the looks, the sex appeal, and, of course, the contacts.
    Her answer was invariably to screw up her pretty face and go, “Oh, Barbara, I can’t even walk a straight line. And I can’t walk and talk at the same time, either!” Subject closed.
    The topic of Marilyn, however, was an ongoing discussion between us. Evie knew how much Marilyn fascinated me, and that I was one of the few people in town she could open up to without fear of what she said ending up in Hollywood Confidential.
    Marilyn aroused such a sense of protectiveness in Evie that she watched over Marilyn as fiercely as a lioness might over a fragile cub. And she didn’t mince her words when it came to anyone she thought was exploiting Marilyn or might be a danger to her in any way.
    “People just aren’t nice to her. She’s insecure, they know it, and they build on it. Like that Strasberg woman, her acting teacher. She hangs around Marilyn like some kinda albatross,” she said in a voice full of scorn. “And poor Marilyn is so petrified of not being a good enough actress that between scenes, she lies down on her couch and says her lines over and over and over again, so she won’t make a mistake. They could all reassure her. But they won’t, because it suits them not to.”
    Another time she told me: “Everybody is crazy about Marilyn’s body, but Marilyn, she says she’d rather look like Kate Hepburn—boyish, not round. I keep telling her that she wouldn’t be Marilyn if she looked like that, but she says she wouldn’t care.”
    As time went on, Evie’s revelations about Marilyn grew darker, especially in the months leading up to my meeting with Marilyn on the set of Something’s Got to Give: hints that Marilyn had told her that she was being followed night and day, something about a man in a green Mercedes, her phone being tapped, even death threats.
    By the spring of 1962, Evie was deeply worried about her “other star.” At the time, Evie was standing in for me on Five Weeks in a Balloon, on which shooting was already under way. I sensed that there was trouble ahead when she came clattering along the corridor in her impossibly high heels, much faster than usual, a clacking urgency echoing in her footsteps.
    “Barbara, Marilyn needs me. I’m gonna have to leave your movie early,” she said.
    Marilyn was the queen of Twentieth Century Fox. Evie was my friend. So I did my best to handle the news with as much grace as I was capable of mustering.
    “Well, that’s fine, Evie. When does Marilyn start shooting?” I said.
    “Tomorrow,” Evie said.
    I must have looked a little startled, because she put her arm around me. “Barbara, honey, you don’t understand. Marilyn needs me right now. You’re a strong girl. You don’t need me.”
    I wasn’t going to admit it to Evie or put pressure on her not to leave me in the lurch, but in fact I did need her. She was my friend and my stand-in, the only one I’d ever had, and so I was filled with trepidation at the prospect of not having her stand in for me on Five Weeks in a Balloon. But I wasn’t going to make things difficult for Evie, particularly if Marilyn needed her even more than I did.
    As if she could read my thoughts, Evie went on, “Marilyn really does need me, Barbara. More than I can tell you.”
    I told her I understood, and she thanked me. The next time I saw her, on April 10, 1962, she was pulling me onto the Something’s Got to Give sound stage because Marilyn had suddenly announced that she wanted to meet me.
    So there I was in my clown outfit, complete with baggy plaid pants, about to be presented to the most glamorous woman on the planet. All I needed was a red nose and a dunce’s cap for my humiliation to be complete. But Marilyn wanted to meet me, and both my curiosity and the good manners my mother had drilled into me held me back from refusing.
    So I let Evie drag me over to sound stage 14,