'60s TV Icon, 94, Appeared on ‘I Love Lucy' 69 Years Ago Today-One of Her First Hollywood Roles
On this day in 1957, Barbara Eden stole the show on I Love Lucy. The actress was just 24 years old when she appeared in a guest role in the episode "Country Club Dance", which aired April 22, 1957, on CBS.
The I Love Lucy role was one of Eden's earliest credited acting gigs. Eight years later, she'd go on to star in the NBCsitcomI Dream of Jeannie opposite Larry Hagman. The popular series aired for five seasons and made Eden a star.
On I Love Lucy, Eden played Diana Jordan, a blonde beauty who steals the attention of Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), Fred Mertz (William Frawley), and Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson) at a country club dance, much to their wives' annoyance.
Speaking with the Television Academy Foundation, Eden, who is now 94, looked back on the role on the iconic 1950s comedy series.
"I was the country cousin who came to visit," she shared. "It was about a dance at the country club, and none of the men wanted to dance, you know, all the wives were sitting there, ‘Let's dance, let's dance' until cousin, whatever her name was, came in and said, ‘Hi, you know. And here I was in that dress. … I came to sit down, and someone asked me to dance, and then they all stood up and wanted to ask me to dance."
"It was one of those things, and of course I danced with Desi, and that gave Lucy lots of fodder, you know, to make her faces and look upset," she added. "And it was fun."
Barbara Eden said Lucille Ball was ‘wonderful' to work with
Eden also opened up about her I Love Lucy role during a fan appearance in 2022, according to People magazine.
The actress noted that I Love Lucy was her third job in Hollywood. And while she was careful to stay away from Ball's husband– "I knew Desi was a playboy, so I knew I had to be careful there," she said-she totally hit it off with the comedy queen.
"[Lucy] was in her dressing room and she's like, 'Barbara, come here, come here,'" Eden recalled. "And I'm like, 'Oh my God. It's going to start. Here it is.' She said, 'Do you like that dress?' And I said, 'I love it. It's fine, it's fine, everything's wonderful.' She said, 'Take it off.' So I take it off. Do you know that Lucy and her assistant sat there and put those shiny things [rhinestones] on that dress? They punched them in. But it was to make the dress look better."
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Eden also revealed that Ball liked her so much that she wanted to sign her for her production company. "The last day on the set, Lucy had wanted to put me under contract because she thought I had good comedy timing," the actress told the Television Academy Foundation. "I was very excited about it, but I had done the test at Fox, and they had an option. So the very day of shooting on Lucy, I found out that they had picked up my option at Fox."
"Of course, I was in awe," she added of her experience on I Love Lucy. "I was absolutely just all eyes, you know, just all eyes, but the most wonderful thing was Lucy. She was so good to me, so good to me."
Nearly 70 years later, Eden still thinks of Ball's kindness. In a 2022 post to Instagram, Eden shared a photo from the I Love Lucy set with the caption, "Thinking back to the time I appeared on #ilovelucy as Diana Jordan in the ‘Country Club Dance' episode. Lucy was such a wonderful woman, light years ahead of her time. I will never forget her kindness and generosity."
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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 7:04 AM.