😟She was a beloved star who captured the public’s heart. 🤔 Everyone adores her, and you won’t guess who she is!

Move over, Aladdin! Barbara Eden, the woman who made the world dream of genies, celebrates her 92nd birthday on August 23, and she looks incredible!

Eden, who turned fans into hopeless romantics, hoping their own blonde genie would grant their wishes, is still beloved nearly 60 years after her debut in the series I Dream of Jeannie.

While she knew how to pose and perform magic on screen, in real life, she couldn’t save her son, who tragically died of a heroin overdose in 2001.

Born during the Great Depression, Barbara Eden turned poverty into luxury when she began her film career in 1956 (in A Private’s Affair and Twelve Hours to Kill) and appeared on TV shows like The Johnny Carson Show and I Love Lucy.

In 1960, she captured the international audience’s heart when she starred alongside the “King of Rock and Roll,” Elvis Presley, in the western Flaming Star.

Then, in 1965, the stunning blonde played Jeannie, the beautiful genie freed by astronaut and U.S. Air Force captain Tony Nelson, played by Larry Hagman, in I Dream of Jeannie.

The role made her an icon, and her portrayal of the magical being was adored throughout the show’s five seasons.

The same year she reached super-star status with her role as Jeannie, Eden and her husband, actor Michael Ansara (known for his starring role in the 1960s series Broken Arrow), welcomed their son, Matthew Ansara, born on August 29, 1965.

When Matthew was nine, his parents ended their 15-year marriage, and Eden, who remarried twice after that, believes her son turned to drugs.

She recalled noticing issues with Matthew in 1984, when, at 19, he moved in with his father after her second marriage. Upon returning after her second divorce, Eden said that he was sleeping a lot and lying about going to college.

“Matthew never told Mike and me that he was using heroin — he didn’t want to hurt us. But we figured it out because he was lethargic, losing weight, and staying up all night. I insisted he go to rehab, and he came back home after a month,” Eden recalled.

However, he relapsed. “Specialists told us that when your child uses drugs, they’ve become the drug themselves: they’re no longer your child, and they no longer have a home with you. So, I locked him in at 20, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Matthew, who started using drugs at just 10 years old, spent the next 12 years in and out of rehab centers, with his parents trying to help him.

“When he visited us, sometimes he’d laugh and say, ‘Here I am, better lock everything up.’ But when he was sober, he’d say, ‘I’m so sorry. I love you more than anything,’” Eden shared about her son, who often stole from them when he visited.

During a brief period of remission, when Matthew was 27, he married and studied creative writing at the University of California, but “the cycle started again,” and his wife left him.

Recalling how everything took a turn for the worse, Eden said she confronted her son, and “he got angry, threw his things, and left.” After months of searching, Eden found Matthew living on the streets.

“One day, shortly after we parted, he called me in a half-dead voice and said, ‘Mom, I’m sick.’ Mike’s wife and another friend went with me to a bad area of Venice, California, and we found him in his apartment, unconscious from a drug overdose.”

Describing his living conditions as “filthy,” Eden continued, “He weighed 200 pounds, but the three of us women lifted him to his feet, carried him to the car, and took him to the hospital, which saved his life.”

At 29, Matthew was diagnosed with clinical depression and took medication that didn’t help.

At 31, Matthew got clean again and, following in his parents’ footsteps, landed a lead role in the 2001 film Protect and Serve and a supporting role in Con Games, which was released posthumously the same year.

Later that year, he planned to marry “a wonderful girl.”

One day he told Eden, “Life is beautiful, Mom. I can’t believe I never noticed how the trees turn green.”

Shortly after that conversation, on June 26, Eden was awakened by a phone call about her son.

Six hours before the call, police had found 35-year-old Matthew, an amateur bodybuilder, slumped over the wheel of his truck, where they also discovered vials of anabolic steroids he was using to bulk up for competitions.

An autopsy revealed that Matthew died from an accidental drug overdose.

“He had taken an unusually pure dose of heroin, and it was too much for his heart,” Eden said. “Even when he was getting in shape, he did it obsessively, like a drug addict — he couldn’t do anything in moderation.”

Mourning the loss of her only child, the writer and singer, who has been married to John Eichholtz since 1991, continues to seek answers.

“Matthew took it terribly. He wanted his mom and dad to stay together. If I could do it all over again, I would wait until he grew up. But then I remind myself that many kids from divorced families don’t turn into drug addicts.” She continued, “He won many battles. But he lost his personal war.”

Matthew’s father, Michael Ansara, passed away in 2013 at the age of 91 from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease and is buried next to his son at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

As for Eden, who retired in her pink genie costume, she can still be seen on shows like Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition and in the 2019 film My Adventures with Santa, where she plays Mrs. Claus. Her last stage production was the 2019 film Love Letters.