Barbara Eden and Son Matthew Ansara: The Story of a Mother’s Devotion and Heartbreaking Loss

In 1965, Barbara Eden found herself standing at a crossroads that would define the rest of her life. Professionally, she was preparing to launch a television series that would soon become one of the most recognizable sitcoms in classic TV history. At the same time, after years of trying to start a family, she received deeply personal news: she was finally pregnant. The series was I Dream of Jeannie, which would debut that fall. The child she was carrying would be Matthew Ansara and the timing felt almost miraculous.

Matthew was born on August 29, 1965, the beloved son of Eden and actor Michael Ansara, whom she had married in 1958. Looking back years later, the actress described the joy of finally becoming a mother after such a long wait. “We called him our lucky-charm baby,” Barbara wrote in her 2011 autobiography Jeannie Out of the Bottle. “Our joy was boundless. We had a child at last, and we loved him more than words could say.”

For Eden, motherhood quickly became the center of her life. The success of I Dream of Jeannie would soon bring worldwide fame, but the actress was prepared to walk away from it if necessary to raise her child. In fact, when she learned she was expecting Matthew, Eden believed she might have to give up the starring role altogether. Concerned that the pregnancy would interfere with filming the show’s first season, Eden approached creator Sidney Sheldon and suggested that he consider replacing her. Instead, Sheldon offered reassurance—and a clever production solution.

“Sidney came up with an almost foolproof technique for disguising my pregnancy by draping me with a multitude of veils and instructing that I be shot only from the waist up, or from a distance,” Barbara penned. “Consequently, I worked on I Dream of Jeannie right up until the eighth month of my pregnancy, and filmed eleven episodes of the show during that time.”

Balancing stardom and motherhood

While I Dream of Jeannie became a television sensation during its five-season run from 1965 to 1970, Eden’s focus remained firmly on Matthew. Still, maintaining that balance was not always easy. Television schedules could be demanding, and the financial realities of the entertainment industry meant that Eden often had to take on additional work between seasons. During hiatus periods, she appeared on episodic television, performed in summer stock productions across the country and headlined nightclub engagements in Las Vegas and elsewhere.

The downside, of course, was the time those commitments kept her away from home, and Matthew began noticing that his mother was frequently leaving for work—something that troubled Eden deeply. The last thing she wanted was for her son to believe that her career mattered more than he did.

At the same time, the family faced practical financial concerns. Michael Ansara’s earlier television show, the Western series Broken Arrow, had ended, and acting opportunities for him were inconsistent and oftentimes consisted of guest starring roles on a number of series, Star Trek among them. Increasingly, the responsibility for supporting the household fell on Eden’s shoulders.

There were moments when the strain became painfully obvious. When Matthew turned two, for example, Eden was unable to attend his birthday because she was committed to a Las Vegas engagement. But determined to create more stability for her family, she eventually began making difficult choices about the work she accepted. One of the most significant came when Bob Hope invited her to join his annual holiday tour entertaining American troops overseas. Though the offer was an honor, Eden declined so she could spend Christmas morning at home with Michael and Matthew.

Growing up with ‘Jeannie’

For Matthew, growing up meant living alongside one of television’s most famous characters. Jeannie was such a constant presence in the household that Eden later compared Matthew’s childhood experience to that of actress Candice Bergen, who grew up with Charlie McCarthy, the famous ventriloquist’s dummy performed by her father, Edgar Bergen.

But fame could also be confusing for a child. Kids who recognized Eden from television sometimes expected Matthew to perform magic tricks or demonstrate genie powers himself. For a young boy trying to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, it could be frustrating. But the challenges of celebrity became particularly clear during a family trip to Disneyland.

Eden attempted to move through the park unnoticed by wearing a disguise, hoping to spend the day simply enjoying the attractions with her son. Unfortunately, fans recognized her while they were waiting in line and began requesting autographs. She graciously obliged—but Matthew was far less pleased.

Standing beside his mother while she signed for strangers, he grew visibly irritated. Over time, that irritation developed into something deeper. By the time he was six or seven years old, Matthew had, according to his mother’s memoir, begun to resent the television series that demanded so much of his mother’s time.

A son who became her protector

Ironically, the resentment Matthew once felt toward I Dream of Jeannie eventually gave way to a fierce sense of loyalty. As he grew older, Eden occasionally brought him along on work trips—whether performing onstage in Las Vegas or traveling overseas to entertain the troops. Watching his mother perform gave Matthew a new appreciation for what she did, and eventually he became intensely protective of her.

“When he reached his late teens and early twenties,” Barbara said, “Matthew became my greatest defender; a chivalrous knight in shining armor, loving and protective in the extreme.”

At times, that protective instinct could become almost overzealous. If Matthew believed someone was disrespecting his mother, he did not hesitate to speak up—even when the person involved was a well-known celebrity.

A marriage under strain

Even as Eden’s career flourished after Jeannie ended, personal challenges began to emerge. In 1971, she and Michael Ansara were thrilled to discover she was pregnant again. Financial concerns, however, made it difficult for Eden to step away from work completely. She accepted roles in touring productions of The Unsinkable Molly Brown and The Sound of Music, traveling across the country while under her doctor’s careful supervision. When the tours ended and she returned home, she was seven months pregnant.

Then came devastating news: something was wrong with the baby. “I carried my second son for almost eight months [in 1971] before the doctors told me he had died in the womb,” she told People in October 2021. “It was awful. I became numb. You just deal with everything every day. I went right back to work and lost a lot of weight.”

The emotional fallout lingered. “I’d come home and look at my little boy who’s adorable and think, ‘I’m so lucky. I have this sweet child. I have a husband who loves me. What’s wrong with me?’” she explained. “And nobody told me what was wrong with me. At that time, going to a psychiatrist, people didn’t do it. You just healed yourself. Now you go get help when you feel that bad. When you can’t move or don’t want to do anything, go and get help.”

The loss placed enormous strain on the Ansara marriage. In 1974, after 16 years together, the couple divorced.

Matthew’s own path

As Matthew grew older, he attempted to find his own direction. At one point, he expressed interest in acting, appearing in a 1981 episode of Eden’s television series Harper Valley P.T.A. titled “To Dunk or Not to Dunk.” Recognizing how nervous his son was, Michael Ansara even visited the set to help him relax.

Matthew would later share the screen with his mother again in the 1989 television movie Your Mother Wears Combat Boots, and he appeared in several smaller projects over the years, including a 2000 episode of the series One World and the films To Protect and Serve and Con Games. But behind the scenes, he was facing a growing struggle with addiction.

The roots of Matthew’s addiction dated back to his childhood. In the mid-1970s, a neighbor in the family’s San Fernando Valley community grew marijuana and shared it with neighborhood kids—including Matthew. Neither Eden nor Ansara initially realized what was happening. Coming from families with histories of addiction, Matthew was particularly vulnerable, and what began with marijuana eventually led to more dangerous substances.

Eden later acknowledged that she wondered whether the divorce had contributed to Matthew’s search for escape. But to her credit, she was far from a disengaged parent. Both she and Ansara attempted to keep a close watch on their son, but the problem was that neither of them knew what signs to look for. Subtle clues—mood swings, weight loss, oversleeping and sudden bursts of anger—were easy to overlook until the problem had grown far worse.

A long battle

The full scope of Matthew’s struggle with drug addiction—which had gradually shifted from pot to heroin—became clear in 1984, when Eden discovered that he was not actually attending classes at the San Fernando Valley’s City College, despite claiming he went there daily. When she confronted him, he exploded in anger and left the house. For weeks, neither parent knew where he was until Eden received a call from the police saying that Matthew had been pulled over and appeared to be a danger to himself and others.

He agreed to enter rehabilitation, and both parents hoped the ordeal would mark a turning point. Instead, it began a cycle that would last for years, with Matthew entering rehab repeatedly—at one point spending time at the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota—but lasting recovery proved elusive. Eden was told by one of them by a counselor that when a child abuses drugs in the manner that Matthew was, it means he’s more or less become those drugs. “He is no longer your child,” she was informed, “and he no longer has a home with you.” 

In 2000, however, it seemed that Matthew had finally turned his life around. He became engaged to a woman named Leanna Green, moved in with her and began focusing on his physical health. Standing six-foot-four and weighing about 280 pounds, he had taken up bodybuilding and was preparing for competitions. For the first time in years, Eden allowed herself to believe that things might finally be improving.

“He would be straight for about a year and a half and had some success with it,” Barbara said in her Entertainment Tonight interview. “In fact, I was shocked when I got the call, because he had been clean and sober for almost two years and was going to get married. We had the parties for the marriage arranged and everything.”

Tragically, the recovery did not last. On June 26, 2001, Matthew Ansara died at the age of 35 after suffering a drug overdose. He was found in his truck at a California gas station. “The policeman told me that he was on heroin and that heroin can be cut or not cut in certain ways,” she shared. “And they said, ‘We know that this is very lethal on the street.’ Apparently, that’s what happened: he got a lethal dose.”

The grief that followed has never truly faded. “In the days, weeks, months and years since the funeral,” she wrote, “I have put one foot in front of the other and carried on as best I could. In the intervening years, I’ve often been asked how anyone can cope with losing a child, and the answer is that you don’t. You can’t. There’s no way. You don’t know how you will get through it, how you can survive. But you just do. There’s no other choice.”