Barbara Eden on Son's Overdose

Jan. 30 -- If Barbara Eden found a magic bottle with a genie inside, or if the I Dream of Jeannie star could really just blink her eyes to make almost anything happen, perhaps she would turn back time.

Last June, Eden's only child died of a heroin overdose, and the world discovered that she had been keeping a heartbreaking secret. She talked to Connie Chung about the tragedy she could not blink away.

Dreaming of a Family

Though I Dream of Jeannie only ran on network TV for five years, from 1965-1970, the show has been re-running almost continually ever since.

Eden almost gave up the role because she had wanted to start a family. After being married for seven years to TV actor Michael Ansara, she learned she was pregnant on the very day the pilot for I Dream of Jeannie sold.

She told the producer, and instead of replacing her, the network agreed to shoot around her pregnancy. For the first 13 episodes, they hid her pregnancy with props and veils. In August 1965, while the series was on hiatus, her son Matthew was born.

Though Eden wanted to keep extending her family, her second pregnancy was a stillbirth, which she had to actually carry full term, even though the fetus was dead.

Eden said she never considered going to therapy, which she now realizes was a mistake, since she never really grieved for her lost child. She continued working, and ultimately broke down. Her marriage unraveled and she divorced, which was when her son Matthew, then about 9 or 10, started using drugs.

When Matthew was about 12, Eden remarried and moved to Chicago. She planned to bring her son with her, but Matthew wanted to stay in Los Angeles, and she said her ex-husband threatened to sue for custody.

So for the next six years, Matthew lived with his father, while Eden became a commuter mom who saw her child usually every three weeks.

A Different Child

In 1983, she divorced again and moved back to Los Angeles to find that her son was a moody and withdrawn teenager.