Barbara Feldon

[Findcandor]

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At a NYC event in April 12, 2017; this man was her date, potentially getting into her eighty-four-year-old
pants (she reveled in being single, writing a book about its benefits). Second, reunited with GET SMART's
Don Adams at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills. Last, with Adams again at the TV Land
Awards in Hollywood. (Photos by Rabbani and Solimene, Malcolm Ali and Gregg DeGuire, respectively.)


Please allow for an explanatory prologue to this post. I had put up three back-to-back posts on this fairly inactive thread, now on bottom half of the last page (page four). The running gag for all three was that Barbara has been very selfish, almost never allowing for more revealing views of her slender form. In my third post from Sept. 2022, I see I expressed surprise the thread had gone bare without further additions for an entire year.

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As a gossip columnist who teams up on a case with one of the heroes of the adventure
series SEARCH (Doug McClure, pictured), in the 1972 episode entitled, "In Search of Midas."

I had begun work for a post on the "Jean Smart" thread, which later was published in December, 2022. One of the Jean Smart vehicles I dug up happened to co-star Barbara along with another known actress who was the primary star... and I simultaneously began posts on both. Then I got sidetracked with other ladies, and put aside these two half-written posts. Had this all gone to plan, this post was going to appear as the last post on the prior page, where you will see good old Johnbear had made an addition in December of 2022. So I now present what I had written way back then, now from over one year ago (for God's sake):

With Conchata Farrel, in first.

Working on a post for the "Jean Smart" thread, it seemed appropriate to seek a vehicle featuring "young" Jean Smart (since all that most of us — who are aware of Ms. Smart; I was among the unaware — are familiar with is "old" Jean Smart), and Jean's very first credit was Before and After (1979), where she had the role of "Woman Bather" (meaning potential for Smart skin, and when she was in her twenties. Hallelujah), so I had to seek it out. Well, who's going to remember this obscure TV movie about a lady who is weight-obsessed? After digging deeper and deeper where I almost found myself on the Dark Web, I found a copy, and I noticed two familiar faces. One was of the star, Patty Duke (and naturally I will make an addition to her VEF thread), and the other was...


With Patty Duke, in last.

...Barbara Feldon. Yes, the very bad, bad Barbara Feldon who evidently never permitted glances at her fine feminine figure unencumbered by that nasty invention known as "clothing." (I see I have been practically the only one contributing to this VEF thread of hers for over the last year. Serves her right! You see, Barbara? You are being ignored by VEF's discriminating membership, and the only reason for that was probably because you were just so unreasonably selfish. If Barbara had only exposed a little bit of flesh throughout her screen career, this thread would have undoubtedly reached six hundred pages by now.)



So here's the story of this film that aims to help women with their self-esteem, it appears. Patty is a fat cow of a wife. (No one bought this.) Hubby Bradford Dillman loses interest in her because of the extra meat. (To help with this illusion, Patty was dressed in bulky sweats.) So Patty goes on a "diet or die" mission, combined with rigorous exercise.


Exercising motion led to a quick peek of the goods.

We have the happily married and overweight friend (Conchata Farrel), and an engaged friend who can't be thin enough (her goal is to fit into granny's wedding dress), played by Barbara Feldon, who collapses from her efforts. The message is clear; if only the filmmakers had the capacity to fast-forward four decades, they may not have bothered, since fat-shaming has been criminalized, and this film would have been unnecessary. (See? There is a reason no one knows about the film today.)



At any rate, the audience was offered a few views highlighting Barbara's sleek form.


That's what I had written. Barbara looked very fine in this TV film, when she was forty-six (note that Post #1 had reflected what must have been the consensus from 2009, that of a birth year of 1932, but Barbara's IMDb page has revised the year to 1933... which, if correct, means the lady will be turning ninety-one in a few weeks). I also prepared the following from an episode (which episode? I knew at the time this post was supposed to go up, but have now forgotten) of Get Smart, where we got some sense of her physique (encumbered by that coat, of course):



As a by-the-way, since I went through this thread again, I can see how Member "Blackv8" (now absent from VEF for over a decade) was especially dedicated to this cherished actress, having filled up almost all of the first page with his loving posts; that was impressive, and calls for a nod.

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Barbara Feldon with Cybill Shepherd in publicity stills for the 1978 TV movie, A
Guide for the Married Woman; actor Charles Frank joins the pair in the second shot.
(Photos by Jim Globus.)

In 2017, the then-octogenarian beauty was the subject of an article, revealing she had no chemistry with Don Adams, and it was only after they made a 1989 TV remake when they became close friends. Of the 2008 Get Smart film with Anne Hathaway and Steve Carrell, while entertained, Ms. Feldon thought the effort had fallen short. ("The characters we played were from such an innocent time. It had its own flavor and you couldn't remake it.") Our lady also revealed that her first job was as a Copacabana showgirl, which she loved ("probably the highlight of my whole career"), she snared the big prize as a twenty-four-year old in a 1957 episode of the The $64,0000 Question game show ("It was a lot of memorizing"; her subject was Shakespeare), and that actress Colleen Dewhurst took a liking to Barbara, which led to becoming a mentor.













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