The cast of I Dream of Jeannie. (Front row - L-R:) Larry Hagman (as Major Tony Nelson) and Barbara Eden (as Jeannie). (Back row - L-R): Bill Daily as Major Roger Healey and Hayden Rorke (as Dr. Alfred Bellows). Photo copyright of NBC.
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, veteran actor Bill Daily talks about how he was cast as Roger Healey in I Dream of Jeannie.
In the 1965 American sitcom I Dream of Jeannie astronaut Major Tony Nelson becomes the reluctant master of a two-thousand-year-old beautiful, sexy, genie who lives, where else, in a bottle. Appropriately named Jeannie, this kind, considerate young woman wants only to please the major, but more often than not her good intentions land him in hot water, sometimes literally! Nelson’s best friend and fellow astronaut Major Roger Healey is the only other person besides himself who knows of Jeannie’s existence and her magical powers.
Actor, musician, director, writer and comedian Bill Daily, also famous for playing next door neighbour and straightman Howard Borden to comedian Bob Newhart on The Bob Newhart Show, was the ideal match as sidekick to Larry Hagman’s Major Nelson.
“I had a ball playing Roger Healey,” he says. “[Comedian] Steve Allen is the one who originally discovered me and brought me out to California. I remember being at one of his house parties and Bob Hope came up to me and said, ‘I really like I Dream of Jeannie.’ I told him, ‘Well, I’m doing you.’ When Larry and I were in front of the camera I was Bob Hope to his Bing Crosby and that’s exactly how we played the relationship for five seasons. Roger was busy trying to score with the chicks and cooking up all these money-making schemes, while at the same time covering for Tony to make sure no one found out about Jeannie. Who wouldn’t love to portray a character like that?”
I Dream of Jeannie creator Sidney Sheldon spotted Daily’s performance as a father who adopts a child in the first-season Bewitched episode A Vision of Sugar Plums and asked him to come in to audition for a role on the show. “I was concerned about reading for Sidney because I’m slightly dyslectic, but somehow I got through it,” says Daily. “There were seven guys besides myself auditioning for the part, which was called Man in Uniform, and I was lucky enough to be hired.
“Originally, the series was going to be about Jeannie [Barbara Eden] and Major Nelson, who was engaged to Melissa Stone [Karen Sharpe], the daughter of his superior officer General Stone, who was played by the eminently talented actor Philip Ober. My character, Man in Uniform, and the other military officers were to stay pretty much in the background.
“We shot the pilot for I Dream of Jeannie [The Lady in the Bottle] and at that time I was appearing at The Little Club in Hollywood doing a comedy act with some brilliant and talented people including Jack Riley,” continues the actor. “It really was a sensational act and everyone including all the big name stars would come see us. One night Ron Amateau, the producer of another television comedy My Mother the Car, visited the club. He had wanted me to do his show but I decided to go with I Dream of Jeannie instead.
“Ron came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I heard they changed the whole concept for I Dream of Jeannie and it’s going to be about you, Larry Hagman and this genie. I asked, ‘How did this happen?’ To this day I don’t know what could have transpired to make Sidney revamp the show like that. I just couldn’t believe how a character that had only two lines in the pilot ended up playing the third lead on the series, but I think Larry had something to do with that because he liked me. So Philip Ober and Karen Sharpe were eventually phased out and the story came to revolve around Tony Nelson, Jeannie and Roger Healey, alias the Man in Uniform. It really turned out to be a tremendous break for me.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of NBC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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