Barbara Eden Says People Didn’t ‘Appreciate’ Elvis Presley’s Acting (Exclusive)

Barbara Eden has nothing but positive things to say about Elvis Presley. 

The I Dream of Jeannie star, 94, exclusively tells PEOPLE that she enjoyed working with the late King of Rock and Roll in the 1960 Western film Flaming Star. 

The actress particularly gushed over Presley’s acting talents, saying, “I remember how good he was. He was a fine actor. This was a part that required good acting, and he did it, boy.”

“The whole thing was a beautiful piece,” she adds.

However, Eden notes that the movie “didn’t make any money” when it was first released, partially because fans were upset that Presley didn’t have a singing role. Therefore, the production had her and the “Burning Love” singer record a new scene that involved him “with the guitar and me hopping around the table.”

“It was supposed to be dancing,” the actress jokes. 

“I just think people didn’t recognize or appreciate what a fine actor he was, and a lovely, lovely man,” Eden says.

She also shares that Presley would invite his father and another friend to set, “and they would play their guitars and sing in between shots.”

“I just loved working with him,” she adds.

Flaming Star, based on the 1958 book Flaming Lance by Clair Huffaker, follows Presley as Pacer Burton, a man struggling with his identity after being born to a White rancher and his Kiowa wife. Eden plays Roslyn Pierce, the girlfriend of Pacer’s brother. 

Presley made his feature film debut in 1956’s Love Me Tender and went on to star in over 30 other movies. He died at his Graceland home in Memphis, Tenn., on Aug. 16, 1977, at age 42.

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Eden, for her part, continued to star in several movies throughout the 1960s, including Swingin’ Along, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Brass Bottle. The actress also played the titular character in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie for five seasons from 1965 to 1970.

She reprised her role in 1985’s I Dream of Jeannie… Fifteen Years Later and the 1991 sequel I Still Dream of Jeannie.

Eden spoke about her experience working with Presley in a 2022 Christmas Con panel, during which she said, “Elvis was a delight. He didn’t get the girl and he died — and he was fabulous! He was so wonderful.”

“I think it was the only film he did that he got really good reviews for his acting and he didn’t sing a song,” the actress added. “His fans hated it, but the critics loved it, and he was a joy to work with.”

Eden, who was married to Michael Ansara while filming Flaming Star, joked that she “didn’t have a romance with Elvis like most of his leading ladies did,” calling the then-25-year-old Presley “a gentleman.”

The actress divorced Ansara in 1974 and then wed Charles Donald Fegert in 1977, but the pair split five years later. She has been married to Jon Eicholtz since 1991.