On almost every count, theatrical films have the advantage: larger budgets, longer shooting schedules, higher salaries, better scripts and more prestige.

The current reigning queens of movies include Meryl Streep, Debra Winger and Glenn Close. Television film queens include Barbara Eden, Lindsay Wagner, Elizabeth Montgomery and Jaclyn Smith.

Eden is one of many actresses who has starred in movies, TV films, mini-series and sitcoms. She feels comfortable in all of them.

The former star of "I Dream of Jeannie" will play the title role in "The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick," an NBC movie airing in Chicago from 8 to 10 Friday on WMAQ-Channel 5. It's a romantic comedy about a supermarket checkout clerk who is mistaken for a stock-market whiz.

"From an actress's point of view, I think the big difference in features and TV movies is time," Eden said. "You rush from one scene to the next and work 14 hours a day for TV. The pace is much more leisurely for movies.

"But there is more immediacy to TV films, and you don't tie yourself up for three or four months."

Eden's TV movies are equally split between drama and comedy, including "The Stepford Children," "Return of the Rebels," "Girls in the Office," "Woman Hunter" and "Stone Street." Her only mini-series was "Condominium."

Her feature films include "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "The New Interns," "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao" and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm."

In addition to film and TV work, she has starred in summer theater and in her own nightclub act.

Versatility and longevity aside, Eden can't escape being identified as the cute genie opposite Larry Hagman in the TV series "I Dream of Jeannie," in which she starred from 1965 to 1970.

Although she starred in two other series, "Harper Valley P.T.A." and "How to Marry a Millionaire," the public still thinks of her as Jeannie, probably because the series keeps rolling along in reruns.

In Chicago, "Jeannie" reruns air at 1:30 p.m. Monday through Friday on WFLD-Channel 32.

"I'm more often recognized as Barbara Eden," she said, "but it's wonderful to be identified with Jeannie. Most performers try all their lives to find an identifiable role. I was lucky.

"And I think I was lucky to read `The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick.' I saw a good woman's part and a well-written story. So my company (Mi-Bar Productions) co-produced it with the network.

"The role of Kathy is a lot like me, a middle-class working woman. Only she accidentally masquerades as something she's not. She tries to explain she works in a supermarket, not the stock market, but she gets in deeper and deeper.

"I can really identify with Kathy because we share the same backgrounds. We both come from good old American stock. Both my parents worked when I grew up in San Francisco.

"This is the kind of good story that TV movies do so well. I don't think feature-film producers would have brought it to the screen."