So what am I doing on this scintillating Friday night, you ask?
Never mind, I'm going to tell you anyway.
Somehow, I find myself sucked into a black hole of watching what seems like an endless loop of
I Dream of Jeannie. How does this happen?
I don't think I've seen an episode of
I Dream of Jeannie since I was ten.
Seems I haven't missed much.
Frankly, I never liked it nearly as much as Bewitched.
Witches trump Genies any day in my book.
The only thing that really interested me about it was Jeannie's bottle.
But you knew that already, right?
(Oh, and apparently Jeannie is right on trend, since "Radiant Orchid" is Pantone's color of 1967 2013 )
Anyway, who pops up on the screen but "Amanda Bellows", Dr. Bellow's chic trophy wife... you remember, the one with frosted hair and frosted voice.
Love her.
I do a bit of research to find out that she is played by one "Emmaline Henry" who sadly died in 1979 at age 50.
What surprises me most, however, is that Dr. Bellows
has a wife at all.
I mean really.
Now back when I was eating Ding Dongs after school, watching IDoJ in re-re-reruns, somehow it completely flew over my little head ....or maybe it wormed its way into my little psyche, I'm not sure which.....but it's clear to my adult ears that dear old Dr. Bellows is gay gay gay.
Did I mention he must be gay?
Sure enough, a cursory search of Wikipedia turns up this nugget:
"Rorke was "unashamedly gay", as Jeannie co-star Barbara Eden stated in her 2011 biography Jeannie Out of the Bottle. She commented that Rorke "and his partner, Justus Addiss,
lived together for many years in Studio City, along with their
menagerie of dogs." He and Addiss would often invite the cast over for
parties.[1] Eden described Hayden as a "prince" who was a good friend of all and always managed to keep up the spirits of the I Dream of Jeannie cast, often in difficult circumstances.[1]"
Yep.
