Barbara Eden told she won’t make it without ‘big tits’

Barbara Eden was told by a casting director she “won’t make it” in Hollywood as the actress didn’t have “big tits”.

The I Dream of Jeannie star was left “shocked” by the humiliating encounter after arriving in Los Angeles in the 1950s to break into showbiz.

“When I first came down to LA I was sent by a friend of a friend who knew the casting director at Warner Brothers,” she told Entertainment Weekly.

“I went in, and the man was … kind of abrupt and he said, ‘Look … you’re just not the type. You’re not. You’re not Hollywood type’.”

The casting director pulled out a photo to show Eden exactly what he meant by “Hollywood type”.

“He said, ‘This is what they want. This is a picture of my daughter. Big tits,” she said.

“Can you believe? I mean, and of course …. nowadays that wouldn’t be a big deal, but I wasn’t raised for a man in my family to even say the word ‘tits’.

“Lord, I was just shocked.”

“He said: ‘You’re a pretty enough girl but you’re not beautiful … You won’t make it. Go home and marry the boyfriend at home’.”

However, just five months later the casting director was proved wrong.

Eden, now 95, said an acting coach at Warner Brothers invited her to be a part of his class.

“And I was walking down to get to the class, and I heard, ‘Hey, hey, you,’ and I thought, ‘Oh boy, just keep going,’ because I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there. And, ‘Hey, you in the yellow pants?!’ Well, I had yellow slacks on. I turned around and guess who it was?”

She was stunned when that casting director did a U-turn and offered her a screen test, having written her off a few months earlier.

“Can you believe that?”

Eden went on to star with Larry Hagman in the NBC TV series I Dream of Jeannie which aired for 139 episodes over five season from 1965 to 1970

Eden became a household name, also appearing in films such as 1960’s Flaming Star and 1964’s The Brass Bottle, as well as TV shows, including How to Marry a Millionaire, which ran from 1957 until 1959, and Brand New Life, which was broadcast from 1989 until 1990.