Updated: July 16, 2022

Barbara Eden was born on August 23, 1931, in Tucson, Arizona, to Alice Mary (Nee Franklin) and Hubert Henry Morehead. (For decades, her year of birth was thought to be 1934, an age difference of three years.) After her parents divorce, her mother and she moved to San Francisco, where her mother married Harrison Connor Huffman, a telephone lineman, by whom she had a daughter, Eden's half sister. The Great Depression deeply affected the family, and as they were unable to afford many luxuries, Alice entertained her children with singing.

Eden's first public performance was singing in the church choir, where she sang the solos. As a teenager, she sang in local bands for $10 (roughly equivalent to $130 in 2017) a night in night clubs. At age 16, she became a member of Actor's Equity, and studied singing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and acting with the Elizabeth Holloway School of Theatre. She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco in the Spring Class of 1949 and studied theater for one year at City College of San Francisco. As Barbara Huffman, she was elected Miss San Francisco in 1951 and she also entered the Miss California pageant.