Long before Elvis Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu, he apparently had marriage on his mind — and he once turned to Barbara Eden for advice.

The future I Dream of Jeannie star recently recalled a surprisingly personal conversation she had with Presley while the two were working together on the 1960 Western Flaming Star.

At the time, Eden was married to actor Michael Ansara.

Presley, meanwhile, had not yet married Priscilla. But according to Eden, he was already thinking seriously about what a relationship might look like when both people were connected to show business.

And he wanted to know something very specific.

How did Eden and Ansara make their marriage work when they were both actors?

Eden says she gave Presley an answer she still remembers more than six decades later.

Elvis Wanted to Understand How Two Actors Could Stay Married

When Flaming Star was filmed, Presley was already one of the most famous entertainers in America.

Eden was building her own career and was still several years away from becoming a television icon as Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie.

But she already had something Presley apparently found interesting: experience navigating a marriage between two working actors.

Eden had married Ansara in 1958.

According to her recent recollection, Presley repeatedly asked her questions about how their marriage worked.

“He wanted to know how Michael and I made it work,” Eden recalled in an interview reported by Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE.

For Presley, the issue seems to have been more than casual curiosity.

He was asking about the practical realities of being in love while working in an industry built around travel, long hours, public attention and intimate onscreen performances.

Those pressures can blur the line between work and private life.

Eden said her answer was based on keeping that line very clear.

Eden Told Him Acting Was a Job

Eden’s advice to Presley was straightforward.

Acting, she explained, had to remain a job.

The marriage was something separate.

She and Ansara treated their relationship as a partnership that existed outside the characters they played and outside whatever happened on a set.

In other words, the emotions required for a performance did not automatically belong in their real life.

Eden’s point was that two performers could remain committed to each other if they understood that acting was professional work rather than an extension of their personal relationships.

It was a practical answer rather than a romantic one.

And Presley apparently listened closely.

For Eden, who was living that reality every day, the distinction may have seemed obvious.

But for Presley, whose career and private life were already becoming increasingly difficult to separate, it seems to have been a question worth asking.

Then Elvis Mentioned a Girl He Had Met in Germany

The conversation became even more revealing when Presley told Eden about someone he had met overseas.

He spoke about a young woman he knew from his time in Germany.

That woman was Priscilla Beaulieu.

Presley had met Priscilla while serving in the U.S. Army in West Germany.

Their relationship would eventually become one of the most famous romances in American celebrity history.

But in 1960, that future was still years away.

Eden said that when Presley mentioned Priscilla to her, she did not fully understand how young Priscilla actually was at the time.

That detail gives the conversation an entirely different historical significance in retrospect.

Eden was not giving marriage advice to a man who was already married or publicly planning a wedding.

She was talking to a 25-year-old Elvis Presley who was apparently thinking ahead about whether a serious relationship could survive the unusual demands of his career.

Seven years later, Elvis and Priscilla would marry.

The Conversation Happened Before Both Their Lives Changed Dramatically

Part of what makes Eden’s memory so fascinating is the timing.

In 1960, neither star had yet reached the exact point in their career for which many fans remember them today.

Presley was already a phenomenon, but his personal life with Priscilla had not yet become part of American pop-culture history.

Eden had not yet stepped into the pink harem costume that would make her one of television’s most recognizable faces.

I Dream of Jeannie would not premiere until 1965.

That means their conversation took place in a narrow window when both were famous, but some of the defining chapters of their lives were still ahead of them.

They were simply two actors talking between takes.

And one of them happened to be Elvis Presley, quietly asking how a marriage between performers could actually survive.

Eden Remembered Elvis as Curious and Polite

Eden has spoken warmly about Presley over the years.

Her recollections of working with him have tended to focus less on the myth surrounding Elvis and more on the person she encountered on set.

She has described him as polite, thoughtful and interested in other people.

That description fits naturally with the marriage conversation.

Rather than acting as though he already knew everything, Presley was asking someone with more experience for guidance.

Eden had already been married for two years.

She and Ansara understood firsthand what it meant to manage two acting careers within one household.

Presley apparently viewed her as someone who might have an answer.

The fact that he returned to the subject more than once suggests it mattered to him.

Elvis and Priscilla Married in 1967

Elvis and Priscilla eventually married on May 1, 1967, in Las Vegas.

Their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was born the following year.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1973, although the two remained connected through their daughter.

Knowing that history makes Eden’s story feel almost like a glimpse into an earlier version of Elvis.

Years before the wedding photographs, before the headlines and before the public knew where the relationship was going, Presley was privately wondering whether marriage and show business could coexist.

He turned to someone who was already attempting exactly that.

And Eden’s answer was not about fame, money or celebrity.

It was about boundaries.

Treat the work as work.

Treat the relationship as its own partnership.

A Small Conversation With a Much Bigger Meaning

Celebrity stories about Elvis Presley have circulated for decades, and many of them have become so familiar that it can be difficult to separate the person from the legend.

That is why Eden’s recollection stands out.

It is not a story about a concert, a scandal or some extravagant moment.

It is simply Elvis asking another actor for advice.

At the time, Eden could not have known how famous Presley’s eventual marriage would become.

She could not have known that fans would still be discussing Elvis and Priscilla generations later.

And she certainly could not have known that more than 60 years after Flaming Star, people would still be interested in what he asked her between scenes.

But Eden never forgot the conversation.

Before Elvis Presley married Priscilla, he wanted to know whether two people connected to show business could build a marriage that lasted.

Barbara Eden’s answer was simple: keep the performance on the set — and treat the marriage as something real.