Swedish siren Ann-Margret immigrated to the U.S. with her family at the age of seven, settling in a Chicago suburb and later studying Drama at Northwestern University. Despite an innate bashfulness, the girl set out to become a musical entertainer, making her professional debut as a singer at the age of 17. Fortunately, she was spotted by comedian George Burns, who hired her for his Las Vegas show and arranged for several professional doors to be opened for his protégée. Her first film was Pocketful of Miracles (1961), in which she played Bette Davis' daughter; this was followed by a lead in State Fair the following year. Ann-Margret tended to be withdrawn when interviewed, which earned her the media's "Sour Apple" award as least cooperative newcomer. But she was able to overcome this initial bad press via a show-stopping appearance at the 1962 Academy Awards telecast, which turned her into an "overnight" national favorite and encouraged the producers of Bye Bye Birdie (1963) to build up her role. Perhaps the best indication of her total public acceptance was her animated appearance in a 1963 episode of The Flintstones (as Ann Margrock).
Ann-Margret's career faltered in the mid-'60s thanks to a string of forgettable pictures like Made in Paris (1966) and Kitten With a Whip (1964). (One of the few highlights of this period, however, was her appearance in Elvis Presley's Viva Las Vegas in 1964, which led to an offscreen relation with The King.) Her career in doldrums, Ann-Margret marshalled a comeback in the early '70s thanks to the tireless efforts of her husband and manager, former actor Roger Smith. Sold-out Las Vegas and concert performances were part of her career turnabout, although the most crucial aspect was her Oscar nomination for a difficult role in 1971's Carnal Knowledge. But the comeback nearly ended before it began in 1972 when the entertainer was seriously injured in a fall during her Vegas act. With the help of physical rehabilitation and plastic surgery (not to mention the loving ministrations and encouragement of Smith), the actress made a complete recovery and went on to even greater career heights. She received her second Oscar nomination for her bravura performance in the rock-opera film Tommy (1975), where, in one of the high points of '70s cinema bizarre, she sang a number while swimming in baked beans. Ann-Margret was equally impressive (though in a less messy manner) in such powerhouse TV movies as Who Will Love My Children? (1983) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1984).
The low point of Ann-Margret's early-80s career doubtless arrived when she agreed to act in Hal Ashby's lousy 1982 gambling drama Lookin' to Get Out (aside a scream-happy Jon Voight) -- and probably regretted it for years afterward. A few triumphs marked the 1980s as well, however, such as the actress's turn as Steffy Blondell in Neil Simon's enjoyably bittersweet comedy-drama I Ought to Be in Pictures, and her role as a barmaid who strikes up an extramarital affair with - and later weds - Gene Hackman, in Bud Yorkin's finely-wrought domestic drama Twice in a Lifetime (1985).
After Newsies (1992), Disney's glaringly awful attempt to revive the period musical, Ann-Margret took time out of her packed schedule to write her 1993 autobiography Ann-Margret: My Story, a work revelatory about herself and her own personal demons that nonetheless evinces respect toward her show-business mentors and co-workers. She exuded warmth as the bon vivant who falls in-between bickering Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1993 box office hit Grumpy Old Men and its lackluster 1995 sequel, Grumpier Old Men (and played a satisfying straight man throughout). Yet the high profile of the Old Men releases made them exceptions to the actress's output in the mid-late nineties and early 2000s, which - though of varying quality - placed infinitely greater weight on television work than Ann-Margret had at any earlier point in her career. (In fact, for a period of about ten years, she became a veritable telemovie staple on par with Mary Tyler Moore and Meredith Baxter-Birney). These titles include but are not limited to: Nobody's Children (1994), Scarlett (1994), Seduced by Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story, Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story (1998), Happy Face Murders (1999), Blonde (2001) and A Place Called Home (2004).
One big-screen exception arrived in the late 1999 football drama Any Given Sunday, where Oliver Stone gave Ann-Margret her meatiest role since Carnal Knowledge, as the alcoholic mother of team owner Christina Pagliacci (Cameron Diaz. It entailed only a small part amid a massive ensemble cast (Dennis Quaid, Al Pacino, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, others), but provided an excellent showcase for the actress's craftsmanship. She landed a bit part as Wendy Meyers, the mother of Jennifer Aniston's character, in the Aniston-Vince Vaughn romantic comedy The Break-Up, and joined Tim Allen and Martin Short for that same year's Buena Vista holiday sequel Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Actress, singer, and dancer Ann-Margret excelled in two areas of entertainment during a career that was still going strong in its fifth decade: as a movie star, she appeared in more than 50 feature films and as a stage entertainer she performed as a headlining act in showrooms and theaters around the world. To a lesser extent, she found time periodically for television and recordings. Early in her career, emphasis was placed on her attractiveness and sexual appeal; she was marketed as a kind of red-haired American version of Brigitte Bardot. But her talent allowed her to outlive that image, and eventually, while working regularly, she earned Academy, Emmy, and Grammy Award nominations, as well as several Golden Globes in recognition of her film and TV roles.
Swedish-born Ann-Margret Olsson was the only child of Gustav Olsson and Anna (Aronsson) Olsson. Her father, an electrician, had lived in the U.S. for many years, and when she was a year old he moved back to America where he found work in the suburbs of Chicago and saved up to bring his wife and child over. Meanwhile, Ann-Margret began displaying an interest in singing and dancing from the age of three. She and her mother finally arrived in the U.S. in 1946, settling in Fox Lake, IL. There, Ann-Margret took singing, dancing, and piano lessons as a child; she became a naturalized American citizen in 1949. In the summer of 1957, while competing in a TV talent contest in Chicago, she was seen by Ted Mack, host of the national series The Original Amateur Hour, who put her on the show. Later that summer, she spent a month singing with the Danny Ferguson band at the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City. Her first recording came in January 1959. It was an amateur effort, an album made of a show put on by the Tri-Ship Club at New Trier High School and released on a limited basis, Lagniappe '59 Presents "Be My Guest"; she was heard singing Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave."
Ann-Margret graduated from high school in the spring of 1959 and entered Northwestern University that fall, majoring in speech with a minor in drama. She and two classmates joined with a Northwestern graduate to form a group called the Suttletones that appeared in clubs around Chicago on the weekends. The second recording with which she was associated was another amateur school effort, Among Friends -- Waa-Mu Show of 1960, a collector's item even though she only appeared as a dancer in the production and was not featured. After finishing her freshman year in June 1960, she and the Suttletones went to Las Vegas for a club engagement that fell through, then continued to Los Angeles, where they found bookings. At the end of the summer, she dropped out of college to pursue her career, while her fellow students returned to school. She earned her first recording contract with Warner Bros. Records, which released two singles and an album, It's the Most Happy Sound, billed to Ann-Margret & the Ja-Da Quartet. But the records didn't sell. She was appearing in a lounge at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas when she auditioned for comedian George Burns, who added her to his Christmas show at the Sahara. The attention she received led to a record contract with RCA Victor and a film contract with 20th Century-Fox, which promptly loaned her out to Paramount for her first movie, Pocketful of Miracles, director Frank Capra's remake of his 1934 movie Lady for a Day, starring Bette Davis.
Ann-Margret's first RCA single, "Lost Love," did not chart. She followed with "I Just Don't Understand," a bluesy, rocking number co-produced by Chet Atkins and featuring Elvis Presley's backup singers, the Jordanaires, that entered the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1961 and rose into the Top 20. Her first RCA album, And Here She Is...Ann-Margret, was released in October. A third single, "It Do Me So Good," barely reached the charts in November. The same month, Pocketful of Miracles opened, earning her good notices, and she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year -- Female. RCA had her record a variety of pop, country, and rock for her next LP, On the Way Up. The set, released in March 1962, included her versions of such differing material as the pop song "Moon River" and Presley's blues-rock standard "Heartbreak Hotel," as well as the lush ballad "What Am I Supposed to Do," which spent five weeks near the bottom of the Hot 100 and made the easy listening charts. Also in March 1962 came her second film, a remake of the musical version of State Fair, also featuring Pat Boone and Bobby Darin. Here, she got to put on film for the first time her singing and dancing abilities as well as sexy appeal, performing a revved-up version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Isn't It Kinda Fun?" and a duet with Boone on the newly written Rodgers ballad "Willing and Eager." The soundtrack album reached the Top 20.
On April 9, 1962, Ann-Margret appeared on the Academy Awards telecast to sing one of the year's nominated songs, the title theme from Bachelor in Paradise. Her torrid song-and-dance routine stopped the show and increased her stardom exponentially. RCA tried to take advantage of that notoriety by sending her back to the studio and titling the resulting album The Vivacious One, but the record was not successful. She had more luck on the silver screen, where she was cast in the film adaptation of the stage musical Bye Bye Birdie, a send-up of Elvis Presley, in which she played a Midwestern teenager who wins the chance to bestow "one last kiss" on a Presley-like teen idol before he goes into the Army. Her part was built up considerably from what it had been on Broadway, as she opened and closed the film singing a newly written title song, had another solo on "How Lovely to Be a Woman," and joined other cast members on half a dozen other songs. "Ann-Margret...is a wow," wrote Variety, and when Bye Bye Birdie opened in April 1963, it was a hit, its soundtrack album peaking at number two and remaining in the charts over a year. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress -- Musical or Comedy.
Despite her success in movie musicals, Ann-Margret was not able to translate that popularity into her solo records. In the fall of 1963, RCA released Bachelors' Paradise, belatedly trying to take advantage of her Academy Awards moment a year and a half earlier, but the album failed to chart. Meanwhile, she was achieving a kind of immortality by voicing the character of Ann-Margrock on the popular prime-time animated TV series The Flintstones. In January 1964, RCA managed to get her back into the Top 100 on the LP charts by pairing her with trumpeter Al Hirt on the LP Beauty and the Beard. Having worked with an Elvis Presley imitator in Bye Bye Birdie, she next teamed up with the real thing, co-starring in the Presley film Viva Las Vegas, which opened in May 1964. She also sang several songs, soloing on Leiber & Stoller's "Appreciation" and "My Rival" and performing a duet with Presley on "C'mon Everybody," "The Lady Loves Me," and the title song, written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Another duet with Presley, "You're the Boss," was cut from the finished film. She had recorded studio versions of it, "The Lady Loves Me," and "Today, Tomorrow and Forever" (a Presley solo in the film) as duets with Presley, but those recordings were not issued at the time, and there was no soundtrack album, only an EP of Presley solo tracks. Thus, record buyers were denied the chance to buy copies of some of her most memorable musical performances.
RCA (which, of course, also had Elvis Presley under contract) seemed interested in promoting a very different Ann-Margret. The label paired her with middle-of-the-road singer John Gary on the duet album David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Shows, released in October 1964 and in the charts for four weeks. And after three straight movie musicals, her film career took a false step with the poorly reviewed melodrama Kitten With a Whip, which also appeared in October 1964. Two months later, she was back in the theaters and the record stores with The Pleasure Seekers, a musical remake of Three Coins in the Fountain with a soundtrack album on which she also appeared.
As the release of three films within the calendar year of 1964 indicated, Ann-Margret was concentrating more on her film career than anything else, although she was willing to sing in her movies and fulfill the terms of her record contract. RCA didn't bother to have her make an album in 1965, restricting itself to one single, while she released three more non-musical movies, Bus Riley's Back in Town in March, Once a Thief in August, and The Cincinnati Kid in October. The next year brought four film releases. She starred in the comedy Made in Paris in February 1966 and had a featured role in the all-star remake of Stagecoach, released in May. She got to sing in The Swinger in November, leading to the release of her final RCA LP, Songs from "The Swinger" (And Other Swingin' Songs), and played opposite Dean Martin in his second Matt Helm spy spoof, Murderers' Row, in December.
By the end of 1966, Ann-Margret's career was in decline. Like some other performers, she was caught in the cultural changes of the 1960s. Still only 25 years old, she was the same age as Bob Dylan, but she had trained herself for a style of show business that seemed to be passing away. Movie studios were not much interested in making the kind of musicals at which she excelled, and she had made too many non-musicals in too short a time, too many of them failures. Meanwhile, rock had taken over popular music, dooming her recording career. And her sexy, show-business image did not appeal to a new, hip, long-haired generation. RCA released one more single in 1967 before allowing her contract to lapse. Her Hollywood film offers dried up. So, she took steps to retool her career. On May 8, 1967, she married television actor Roger Smith (77 Sunset Strip), who retired from performing to become her manager. In June 1967, she debuted as a Las Vegas headliner at the Riviera Hotel. And in December 1968, she starred in her first television special, The Ann-Margret Show. Meanwhile, film offers had continued to come in from overseas, and her next several movies were made in Europe, South America, and the Middle East. (In one, Rebus, she sang a couple of songs; a soundtrack album belatedly came out in Italy in 2001.)
Ann-Margret returned to recording in 1969 when she made The Cowboy & the Lady, a duo album with Lee Hazlewood, for LHI Records. A second television special, From Hollywood With Love, aired in December. Her first American movie role in years came with R.P.M., released in September 1970, and the following month she appeared in C.C. and Company, written and produced by her husband. (A soundtrack album was released featuring her recording of "Today," written by score composer Lenny Stack, which was also released as a single.) But the role that brought her back to prominence and brought her legitimacy as a serious actress was her featured part in director Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge, starring Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel, which opened in June 1971. It earned her her first Academy Award nomination for supporting actress and won her another Golden Globe. On November 15, 1971, she appeared in a television production of the musical Dames at Sea, resulting in a soundtrack album.
Meanwhile, Ann-Margret was continuing to perform her stage show in the Nevada showrooms. On September 10, 1972, she was severely injured when she fell from a faulty platform during her act at the Sahara Hotel in Lake Tahoe. Surgery and rehabilitation followed, but she was back to performing ten weeks later. That setback aside, she had successfully rebuilt her career by the mid-'70s, alternating film roles (in 1973, the Western The Train Robbers with John Wayne and the French crime thriller The Outside Man) with television specials and stage work. In March 1975, she returned to movie musicals in a big, and surprising, way in director Ken Russell's outrageous film treatment of the Who's concept album Tommy, playing the part of Tommy's mother. She was 33 years old; Who lead singer Roger Daltrey, who played Tommy, turned 31 just before the movie opened. She sang on more than a dozen songs in the all-singing film, including two duets with Daltrey, "Champagne" and "Mother and Son," newly written for the movie. The double-LP soundtrack album hit number two and went gold. She was nominated for her second Academy Award, this time for Best Actress, and won her third Golden Globe, for Best Actress -- Musical or Comedy.
In the second half of the 1970s, Ann-Margret continued to appear regularly on film, earning another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress for 1977's Joseph Andrews, while also making TV specials and performing her act on-stage in Nevada and elsewhere. The rise of disco offered her another chance at the music business, however, and on October 27, 1979, her single "Love Rush," released on Ocean Records and later picked up by MCA, entered Billboard's disco/dance charts heading for a peak at number eight. MCA financed a five-track EP, released in 1980 as Ann-Margret, and from it came "Midnight Message," which entered the dance charts in March and peaked at number 12. Disco was petering out by 1980, but she managed one more chart placing, starting in October 1981 with "Everybody Needs Somebody Sometimes" on First American Records; it got to number 22.
Ann-Margret suffered a personal setback in 1980 when her husband was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a muscle-weakening nerve disease. She devoted more time to her family, helping to care for her husband and three stepchildren, but as the breadwinner in the family, she still had to work. She took more film roles in the early '80s, but cut down on performing her stage act, stopping completely by the end of 1983. Heretofore, she had avoided television movies, but her first one, a tearjerker called Who Will Love My Children? (about a mother of ten who contracts a fatal illness), was broadcast February 14, 1983; it earned her an Emmy nomination. In 1984, she had a more prestigious television appearance in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, playing the part of Blanche DuBois. The performance won her her fourth Golden Globe for Best Actress -- Mini-Series or Television Movie. She was able to return to performing on-stage in October 1988 when she began her first run at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in five years. She toured extensively over the next three years, culminating in her first appearance at New York's Radio City Music Hall in October 1991. In the spring of 1992, she appeared in Newsies, a movie musical for children produced by Walt Disney that didn't do much business but did have a soundtrack album that spent a week in the charts. For the rest of the 1990s, she worked steadily in feature films (e.g., Grumpy Old Men [1993] and Grumpier Old Men [1995]) and TV movies (e.g., the mini-series Scarlett, a sequel to Gone With the Wind [1994], and Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story [1998], which earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie), while continuing to perform her stage act. She published a best-selling autobiography, Ann-Margret: My Story (written with Todd Gold) in 1994.
Ann-Margret continued to work steadily in the 21st century. For the 2000 film The Flintstones in Rock Vegas, she recalled her 1963 appearance on the TV version by singing "Viva Rock Vegas" on the soundtrack (and the soundtrack album, of course). In February 2001, she turned to musical theater for the first time (and returned to the stage for the first time in seven years), starring in a national touring company of the Broadway hit The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and recording a cast album. Somewhat incongruously, in 2001, she released her first gospel album, God Is Love: The Gospel Sessions, accompanied by the Jordanaires (who had been on her first recordings 40 years earlier) and the Light Crust Doughboys with James Blackwood. The album earned her her first Grammy nomination for Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album. After 18 months, she came off the road with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, but by early 2003 she had put together a new stage act and launched her first solo tour in a decade. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret in 1988
Born
Ann-Margret Olsson
April 28, 1941 (1941-04-28)(age 70) Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation
Actress, singer, dancer
Years active
1961–present
Spouse
Roger Smith (m. 1967) «start: (1967)»"Marriage: Roger Smith to Ann-Margret" Location:(linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann-Margret)
Ann-Margret was born in Stockholm, the daughter of Anna (née Aronsson) and Gustav Olsson, a native of Örnsköldsvik. While young she moved with her parents to Valsjöbyn, Jämtlands län, which she later described as a small town "of lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic Circle".[1] Her father worked in the United States during his youth and moved there again in 1942, working with the Johnson Electrical Company, while his wife and daughter stayed behind.
Ann-Margret and her mother moved to the United States in November 1946, and her father took her to Radio City Music Hall on the day they arrived. They settled just outside of Chicago in Wilmette, Illinois. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1949 and took her first dance lessons at the Marjorie Young School of Dance, showing natural ability from the start, easily mimicking all the steps. Her parents were supportive and her mother handmade all her costumes. Ann-Margret's mother became a funeral parlor receptionist[2] after her husband suffered a severe injury on his job.[3] While a teenager, Ann-Margret appeared on the Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour, Don McNeill's Breakfast Club and Ted Mack's Amateur Hour.
Through high school, where she graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, she continued to star in theatricals. She attended Northwestern University, where she was a member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta but did not graduate. As part of a group known as the "Suttletones," they performed at the Mist, a Chicago nightclub, and went to Las Vegas for a promised club date which fell through after they arrived. They plugged ahead to Los Angeles and, through agent Georgia Lund, secured club dates in Newport Beach and Reno, where Ann-Margret had a chance encounter with Marilyn Monroe, who was on location for The Misfits. Monroe noticed the striking girl in a crowd of onlookers, then chatted privately with her, offering her encouragement.
The group finally arrived at The Dunes in Las Vegas, which also headlined Tony Bennett and Al Hirt at that time. George Burns heard of her performance and she auditioned for his annual holiday show, in which she and Burns did a softshoe routine. Variety proclaimed, "George Burns has a gold mine in Ann-Margret...she has a definite style of her own, which can easily guide her to star status."[4]
Recording career
Ann-Margret began recording for RCA in 1961. Her first RCA recording was "Lost Love" from her debut album And Here She Is: Ann-Margret, produced in Nashville with Chet Atkins on guitar, the Jordanaires (Elvis Presley's backup singers), and the Anita Kerr Singers, with liner notes by mentor George Burns. She had a sexy, throaty singing voice, and RCA attempted to capitalize on the 'female Elvis' comparison by having her record a version of "Heartbreak Hotel" and other songs stylistically similar to Presley's. She scored the minor hit "I Just Don't Understand" (from her second LP), which entered the Billboard Top 40 in the third week of August 1961 and stayed six weeks, peaking at #17.[5] The song was later covered in live performances by The Beatles and was recorded during a live performance at the BBC. Her only charting album was The Beauty and the Beard (1964), on which she was accompanied by trumpeter Al Hirt. She also sang at the Academy Awards presentation in 1962, singing the Oscar-nominated song "Theme from Bachelor in Paradise." Her contract with RCA ended in 1966. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, she had hits on the dance charts, the most successful being 1979's "Love Rush," which peaked at #8 on the disco/dance charts.[6] In 2001, working with Grammy Award-Winning producer-arranger-musician Art Greenhaw who calls Ann-Margret his favorite female vocalist, she recorded the critically acclaimed album God Is Love: The Gospel Sessions. The album went on to earn a Grammy Nomination and a Dove Nomination for best album of the year in a gospel category. Her album Ann-Margret's Christmas Carol Collection, also produced and arranged by Art Greenhaw, was recorded in 2004 and continues to be available every year during the holiday season.[7]
Then came a 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical State Fair, playing the "bad girl" role of Emily opposite Bobby Darin and Pat Boone. She had tested for the part of Margy, the "good girl," but she seemed too seductive to the studio bosses, who decided on the switch.[8] The two roles mimicked her real-life personality — shy and reserved offstage, but wildly exuberant and sensuous onstage. As she summed up in her autobiography, she would easily transform herself from "Little Miss Lollipop to Sexpot-Banshee" once she stepped on stage and the music began.[9]
Her next starring role, as the all-American teenager Kim from Sweet Apple, Ohio, in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), made her a major star. The premiere at Radio City Music Hall, 16 years after her first visit to the famed theater, was a smash hit: the highest first-week grossing film to date at that venue. Life magazine put her on the cover for the second time and announced that the "torrid dancing almost replaces the central heating in the theater."[10] She was asked to sing "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home" at President John F. Kennedy's private birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria, one year after Marilyn Monroe's famous "Happy Birthday."[11]
Ann-Margret met Elvis Presley on the MGM soundstage when the two filmed Viva Las Vegas (1964). Ann-Margret introduced Presley to David Winters, whom she recommended as a choreographer for their film. Viva Las Vegas was Winters' first feature film choreography job and was his first of four movies with Presley and his first of five films, including Kitten with a Whip (1964), Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965), Made in Paris (1966) and The Swinger (1966), and two TV Specials with Ann-Margret.[12] Ann-Margret was Winters' dance student at the time and Winters credits Ann-Margret as being 'that special person who changes your life'.[13] Winters was nominated for the 1970 Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Achievement in Choreography' for his CBS Television Special: "Ann-Margret: From Hollywood with Love" (1969)[14][15]
In 1963, Ann-Margret guest-starred in a popular episode of the animated TV seriesThe Flintstones, voicing Ann-Margrock, an animated version of herself. She sang the ballad "The Littlest Lamb" as a lullaby and the (literally) rock-ing song, "Ain't Gonna Be a Fool." Decades later, she recorded the theme song, a modified version of the Viva Las Vegas theme, to the live-action film The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas in character as Ann-Margrock.
While working on the film Once a Thief (1965), she met future husband Roger Smith, who, after his successful run on the private-eye television series 77 Sunset Strip, was performing a live club show at the Hungry i on a bill with Bill Cosby and Don Adams. That meeting began their courtship, which met with resistance from her parents.
Ann-Margret starred in The Cincinnati Kid in 1965 opposite Steve McQueen. She also co-starred along with friend Dean Martin in the spy spoof Murderers' Row (1966). Finally she starred as the lead in "Swingers" in 1966 with Tony Francioso.
Her redhead hair color (she is a "natural brunette") was the idea of Sydney Guilaroff, a hairdresser who changed the hair color of other famous actresses such as Lucille Ball.
She was offered the title role in Cat Ballou (1965), but her manager turned it down without telling her. In March 1966, Ann-Margret and entertainers Chuck Day and Mickey Jones teamed up for a USO tour to entertain U.S. servicemen in remote parts of Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia. She still has great affection for the veterans and refers to them as "my gentlemen." Ann-Margret, Day and Jones reunited in November 2005 for an encore of this tour for veterans and troops at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.[16]
1967–79
During a lull in her film career in July 1967, Ann-Margret gave her first live performance in Las Vegas, with her husband Roger Smith (whom she had married in 1967) taking over as her manager after that engagement. Elvis Presley and his entourage came to see her during the show's five-week run and to celebrate backstage. From thereon until his death, Presley sent her a guitar-shaped floral arrangement for each of her Vegas openings. After the first Vegas run ended, she followed up with a CBS television special "The Ann-Margret Show", produced and directed by David Winters on December 1, 1968,[17] with guest-stars Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Danny Thomas, and Carol Burnett. Then she went back to Saigon as part of Hope's Christmas show. A second Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television special followed, directed and choreographed by David Winters[18] and produced and distributed by Winters' company Winters-Rosen[19] with Dean Martin and Lucille Ball. In 1970, she returned to films with R.P.M. and C.C. and Company. David Winters and the show were nominated for a Primetime Emmy in Outstanding Choreography.[20]
On the set of The Train Robbers in Durango, Mexico, in June 1972, she told Nancy Anderson of Copley News Service that she had been on the "grapefruit diet" and had lost almost twenty pounds (134 to 115) eating unsweetened citrus.[21]
On Sunday, September 10, 1972, while performing at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, she fell 22 feet from an elevated platform to the stage and suffered injuries including a broken left arm, cheekbone and jawbone. Husband Roger Smith flew a stolen plane from Burbank, California, to Lake Tahoe in order to get his wife to the surgeons at the medical center at UCLA for treatment. She required meticulous facial reconstructive surgery that required wiring her mouth shut and putting her on a liquid diet. Unable to work for ten weeks, she ultimately returned to the stage almost (some would say miraculously) back to normal.[22]
Throughout the 1970s, Ann-Margret balanced her live musical performances with a string of dramatic film roles that played against her glamorous image. In 1973 she starred with John Wayne in The Train Robbers. Then came the musical Tommy in 1975, for which she was nominated the Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition, she has been nominated for 10 Golden Globe Awards and has won five, including her Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for Tommy. She also did a string of successful TV specials, starting with The Ann-Margret Show for NBC / CBS in 1968.
On August 17, 1977, Ann-Margret and Roger Smith traveled to Memphis to attend Elvis Presley's funeral.[citation needed] Three months later, she hosted Memories Of Elvis featuring abridged versions of the Elvis 1968 TV and Aloha from Hawaii specials.[citation needed]
In 1978, she co-starred with Anthony Hopkins in the horror/suspense thriller Magic.
In 1989, an illustration was done of Oprah Winfrey that was on the cover of TV Guide, and although the head was Oprah's, the body was referenced from a 1979 publicity shot of Ann-Margret. The illustration was rendered so tightly in color pencil by freelance artist Chris Notarile that most people thought it was a composite photograph.[23]
Ann-Margret published an autobiography in 1994 titled Ann-Margret: My Story,[24] in which she publicly acknowledged her battle with and ongoing recovery from alcoholism. In 1995, she was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history; she ranked 10th.
She made guest appearances on the television shows Touched by an Angel in 2000 and three episodes of Third Watch in 2003. In 2001, she made her first appearance in a stage musical, playing the character of brothel owner Mona Stangley in a new touring production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She played Jimmy Fallon's mother in the 2004 comedy Taxi, co-starring Queen Latifah. In 2001, Ann-Margret worked with Art Greenhaw on the album God Is Love: The Gospel Sessions. The critically acclaimed project resulted in her first Grammy Award nomination and first Dove Award nomination for Best Album of the Year in a Gospel category. They teamed up again in 2004 for the album Ann-Margret's Christmas Carol Collection. She performed material from the album at two auditorium church services at Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, and broadcast worldwide on the program Hour of Power.[25]
Ann-Margret guest-starred in an episode of Law & Order: SVU, "Bedtime," which first aired on March 31, 2010.[26] She received her sixth Emmy nomination for her performance. She also appeared in the Lifetime series, Army Wives, in the episode "Guns and Roses" (Season 4, Episode 5), which originally aired May 9, 2010. On August 29, 2010, she won an Emmy Award for Guest Performance by an Actress for her "SVU" performance. It was the first Emmy win of her career, and she received a standing ovation from the Emmy venue audience as she approached the stage to receive her award.
On October 14, 2010, Ann-Margret appeared on CBS' CSI.[27]
Personal life
Ann-Margret was raised into the Lutheran religion.[1] She has been married to Roger Smith since May 8, 1967; he was an actor who later became her manager. Now Smith is semi-retired due to myasthenia gravis.
She rode a 500cc Triumph T100C Tiger motorcycle in The Swinger (1966). She used the same model, fitted with a non-standard electric starter, in her stage show and her TV specials. A keen motorcyclist, she was featured in Triumph Motorcycles' official advertisements in the 1960s. She suffered three broken ribs and a fractured shoulder when she was thrown off a motorcycle she was riding in rural Minnesota in 2000.
For outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.[28]
Recipient
1988
Golden Globe
Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV
Nominated
Two Mrs. Grenvilles, TheThe Two Mrs. Grenvilles
1993
Emmy
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Mini Series or a Special
^ official records, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences; official records, Gospel Music Association; Mesquite (Texas) News, 2001 Volumes; holiday record release data, Select-O-Hits Distribution, 2004-2010
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