Sidney Sheldon had seen Barbara in "The Brass Bottle", one of the influences which guided him to create the series [in fact, he later said that the genie he had in mind wasn't "big and fat, like Burl Ives, but a young beautiful woman who came out of a bottle and said, 'What can I do for you, Master?'"]; at the time, he was considering beauty contest winners like "Miss Greece" (Corinna Tsopei) and "Miss Israel" (Gila Golan) to play "Jeannie". In any case, he also asked Barbara to audition...
