Barbara Feldon Articles
Swinging Nonchalant
Spy Can't Get Too Excited about TV Success
TV Time & Channel June 21, 1969 - Marilyn Beck
Barbara Feldon wasn't too unhappy when she originally heard that NBC had cancelled Get Smart. And she wasn't too elated when she heard that CBS saved her series from extinction by placing it on its fall schedule.
"I just couldn't see the sense of getting all uptight," she said in a soft, controlled voice. She went on to add that she frankly can't much see the point of getting uptight about most anything at all.
"I have a telescope at home," she said, "and I look at the stars, realizing that some of them are millions, even billions of years old. And it makes me and all my little involvements seem so insignificant, makes me realize how silly it is to worry about life when we're going to be on this earth for such a comparatively few short years."
MORE TO LIFE THAN WORK
"Friends and business agents keep telling me, 'You've got to drive hard to become a star.' What do I care about being a star? It just all seems so silly. There's so much more to life than work. It's just like, when Get Smart originally started, everyone asked if I wasn't overjoyed about landing the role."
She shrugged and in that voice that never seems particularly charged with emotion added, "It was nice. But it wasn't that terribly important to me. You see, I was lucky. I had achieved financial security long before I was signed for the series, working in commercials and fortunately doing very well at them. So then a TV series offer came along and I took it, and as a result of that I've been branching out, singing and guesting on variety shows. But if Get Smart hadn't come along, something else would have. I would have gone into public relations or writing or something. I know I would have made a living."
COOL APPROACH
Barbara's cool approach of life to this era of frenzied drive and hurry has not been easily come by. She used to be just like the rest of us, worrying about the future, her goals, her ambitions.
"But then in college I took a course in psychology and I started examining myself. Since then, whenever I've been able to afford it, I've gone to see a psychiatrist, to examine myself, to make sure I was still on the right course. And why not? Why wait to see an analyst until you no longer can cope, until the situation is acute? Me, I use a therapist almost like a tutor - to help me keep in mind the lessons I've implanted within myself, about the way I want to think and direct my life."
Barbara is divorced at the moment and would like to remarry someday. But with typical nonchalance, she said, "When it happens, it will happen. I want to wait until I find the right man, the man I want to share everything with for the rest of my life."
SHOW OF HER OWN
Barbara had the security of knowing that if Get Smart folded this season, she would be given a network show of her own. That offer is still there, whenever she'd like to pick it up.
"But I wouldn't leave until Get Smart is cancelled. I wouldn't walk out on the show. After all, when 'Max' and I got married on the series, I kind of felt it bound me morally to stay. And now there are plans for us to have twins. My gosh, it would be like abandoning my own family!"
At this point, of course, she really has no idea how Get Smart will fare in the ratings race on its new network. But it's doubtful she'd ever get uptight about a thing like ratings.
"It's nice staying with the series," she admitted. "And it would be nice, too, being the star of my own show. But there are other things in life so much more important such as sailing and painting and playing the guitar and being with friends and reading. I'd never want to reach the point where work was the most important thing in my world. "
Barbara was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., the youngest daughter of Ray and Julia Hall. As a teen-ager she studied dancing, seriously planning on making it her career. "I finally gave it up. Five-foot nine-inch lady dancers have never been in the vogue," she explained.
At 17 she enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, became interested in drama, and forgot about dancing. After graduating, she went to the New York area and for two years worked in community theatres including the John Drew Theatre, Long Island, and Bucks County Playhouse.
She next appeared in the "Copa Line" of the Copacabana nightclub famous for pretty girls in the chorus line. This led to a showgirl part in the Beatrice Lillie revival of Ziegfeld Follies. As a publicity stunt during the run, the chorus line was given an I.Q. test which Barbara passed with flying colors. This led to her being selected as a contestant on The $64,000 Question on which she won top money for her knowledge of Shakespeare.
At the suggestion of one of New York's top models, she entered the modeling field and almost overnight she became one of the top fashion models. This led to her work in television commercials where she became famous as the "Tiger Girl" and popularized the phrase "Sic 'em tiger." She used a provocative tongue-in-cheek approach and emerged as one of the first stars of soft-sell television commercials.
In 1964, she won a top dramatic role opposite George C. Scott in an episode of East Side/West Side. After that, she was guest star on the top network dramatic shows. Her role as an industrial spy on the Mr. Broadway series, produced by David Susskind's Talent Associates, Ltd., won her the part of Agent 99 on Get Smart.
