Barbara Feldon Reveals She Was Nearly Fired from “Get Smart” for Doing a Revlon Ad
Barbara Feldon Reveals She Was Nearly Fired from “Get Smart” for Doing a Revlon Ad
Virginia ChamleeWed, October 7, 2026 at 4:20 PM UTC
0
Barbara Feldon in 2018; Barbara Feldon on ‘Get Smart’Credit: Bobby Bank/Getty; Bettmann/Getty -
Barbara Feldon revealed in a podcast that a Get Smart sponsor objected to her earlier Revlon deodorant promotion
The actress recalled calling the sponsor’s CEO from a parking lot to plead her case
Feldon remained on Get Smart, which aired from 1965 to 1970
Barbara Feldon is opening up about being nearly fired for filming an ad campaign with Revlon during her time on Get Smart.
In an interview on the Sunday, Oct. 4 episode of The Jim Masters Show, Feldon, 93, recalled that she was “within hours of being fired from Get Smart during the first few weeks of Get Smart.”
Feldon went on to explain that one of the advertising sponsors of the show made a soap that contained deodorant — and she had previously appeared in a promotion for Revlon for a stick deodorant product, though it had aired months prior to her taking the role of Agent 99 on the series.
Barbara Feldon on ‘Get Smart’Credit: Bettmann/Getty
“I was still under contract to Revlon and I had done a promotion for them — a Christmas promotion of a stick deodorant — and it was just played over Christmas and that was it and it was never going to be played again,” she explained. “This is the thinking of advertisers, right? The guy who was the head of this company that sponsored Get Smart got it in his mind that people would be reminded that the actress did a deodorant commercial six months ago and would associate it with their soap... and therefore it would be a conflict and people would think of Revlon instead of their soap.”
She added, “And it was down to the line and I was told that I was going to be removed from the set the next day — that they were going to make NBC come and remove me from the set.”
— sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“In the meantime, Revlon promised they’d never use [the ad] again, said it was never intended to be used again, it would never show up on television again [and] people had forgotten it already. It was months before,” she said.
But the producers of Get Smart were not appeased, Feldon said.
Advertisement
When she arrived on set, a producer took her aside with explicit instructions to call the CEO of the company sponsoring the show and plead her case.
“So here I am in the parking lot with the quarters in my hand and my producer saying, ‘This is our last chance,’ and I was so scared,” she said. “I was shaking because I hated being criticized. I felt, you know, so intimidated by this big corporate guy.”
She continued, “So they gave me the phone number and I called him and I said, ‘I’m Barbara Feldon,’ and he said ‘I know who you are,’ and I said, ‘I just wanted to talk about the problem that we’re having,’ he said, ‘I’m not having a problem.’ ”
Feldon recalled telling the CEO “you can imagine how much this means to me. I mean, I’m starring in the show.” She said he responded, “‘Too bad, baby,’ and he hung up.’ ”
Feldon went on to acknowledge that the actors and production teams were often under intense pressure from advertisers. But despite it feeling like “the end of the line” for her, she said business went on as usual.
“We went back onto the sound stage and finished the day’s work and I showed up the next day expecting that I would be fired,” she said. “And the hours went by and nobody came and it was never mentioned again. It was never mentioned again.”
Get Smart aired from September 1965 to May 1970 on NBC, and followed the bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86, and his team as they worked to stop the criminal syndicate KAOS. Feldon’s Agent 99 was the cool, competent counterpart to Don Adams’ Agent 86.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
