Celebrating 80+ Years Of The Beautiful And Talented Ann-Margret

Ann-Mar­gret is a Swe­den-born actress whose career has flour­ished since 1961. We’ve seen her in a num­ber of clas­sic and hit films such as Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Viva Las Vegas (1964), The Cincin­nati Kid (1965), Car­nal Knowl­edge(1971), Tom­my (1975), The Vil­lain (1979), Newsies (1992), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Going in Style(2017). Her career, in total, spans six decades and she has become wide­ly known as the female ver­sion of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Pres­ley.

Related:

1. Ann-Margret’s First TV Role Was Along­side A Mod­ern Stone Age Fam­i­ly
2. The Mul­ti-Tal­ent­ed Sal­ly Ann Howes Stayed Involved In The­atre Until Her Death At 91

Aside from her act­ing chops, she also had a sul­try and vibrant alto voice when singing. She had a chart­ing album in 1964 and a dis­co hit to fol­low in the ’70s. This suc­cess in music con­tin­ued into the 2000s with a crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed gospel album in 2001 and a pop­u­lar Christ­mas album in 2004

Celebrating Ann-Margret and her legacy

Ann-Mar­gret first began record­ing music with RCA Vic­tor in 1961. It was very clear that her musi­cal chops proved suc­cess­ful as she was nom­i­nat­ed for a Gram­my Award for Best New Artist the fol­low­ing year. Many of her songs reached a suc­cess­ful point, sit­ting on the Bill­board Top 40, includ­ing her song “I Just Don’t Under­stand.” She also record­ed her own ver­sion of Elvis Presley’s “Heart­break Hotel,” amongst oth­er songs styl­is­ti­cal­ly sim­i­lar to Presley’s. Her ’70s song “Love Rush” also peaked at num­ber eight on the disco/dance charts.

STATE FAIR, Ann-Mar­gret, 1962, TM and Copy­right ©20th Cen­tu­ry-Fox Film Corp. All Rights Reserved. Cour­tesy: Everett Col­lec­tion

Of course, in the midst of the ’60s, Ann-Mar­gret was mak­ing her TV and film debut as well. She had done a screen test at 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox in 1961, the same year she began record­ing music pro­fes­sion­al­ly, so she def­i­nite­ly kept busy! She went on to make her film debut in Pock­et­ful of Mir­a­cles star­ring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, while 1962 brought her act­ing and singing togeth­er when she starred in the Rodger’s & Ham­mer­stein musi­cal State Fair, appear­ing oppo­site Bob­by Darin and Pat Boone. Even ear­ly on, she was rolling with the stars!

STATE FAIR, Pat Boone, Ann-Mar­gret, 1962, © 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox, TM & Copy­right / Cour­tesy: Everett Col­lec­tion

It was her next star­ring role in Bye Bye Birdie in 1963 that made her a com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful star. The pre­miere of the film at Radio City Music Hall was the high­est first-week gross­ing film to date there. Life, the mag­a­zine, sub­se­quent­ly put her on the cov­er for a sec­ond time and she was asked to sing “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” at Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy’s pri­vate birth­day par­ty — and that was one year after Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe sang “Hap­py Birth­day” for him!

VIVA LAS VEGAS, Elvis Pres­ley, Ann-Mar­gret, 1964 / Everett Col­lec­tion

Cue 1964’s Viva Las Vegas! She and Pres­ley became a star­ring cou­ple in the film, record­ing three duets togeth­er called “The Lady Loves Me,” “You’re The Boss” and “Today, Tomor­row, and For­ev­er.” It’s no secret (and actu­al­ly com­mon knowl­edge) that Ann-Mar­gret was roman­ti­cal­ly linked to Pres­leydur­ing the film­ing of the movie, as Pres­ley was noto­ri­ous­ly known for becom­ing roman­ti­cal­ly close to his lead­ing lady co-stars.

VIVA LAS VEGAS, Ann-Mar­gret, Elvis Pres­ley, 1964 / Everett Col­lec­tion

Achiev­ing even greater star­dom in 1965, Ann-Mar­gret worked on The Cincin­nati Kid oppo­site Steve McQueen. She also co-starred along­side the leg­endary Dean Mar­tin in Mur­der­ers’ Row in 1966 and that same year also brought her The Swinger along­side Tony Fran­ciosa. What a set of stars!

There was a lull in her film career in 1967, which gave her time for oth­er excit­ing ven­tures, among them her own CBS spe­cial titled The Ann-Mar­gret Show! The spe­cial saw well-known stars such as Bob Hope, Jack Ben­ny, Dan­ny Thomas, and Car­ol Bur­nett appear. A sec­ond CBS spe­cial fol­lowed, called Ann-Mar­gret: From Hol­ly­wood With Love, star­ring leg­ends like Dean Mar­tin and Lucille Ball.

The ’70s brought on more film suc­cess for Ann-Mar­gret. Her 1971 role in Car­nal Knowl­edge along­side famed actor Jack Nichol­son earned her a nom­i­na­tion for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Sup­port­ing Actress and she also won the Gold­en Globe Award for Best Sup­port­ing Actress. How­ev­er, in 1972, shock­ing news came when fans learned that Ann-Mar­gret had fall­en 22 feet from an ele­vat­ed plat­form to the stage and suf­fered a bro­ken left arm, cheek­bone, and jaw­bone.

This was all while per­form­ing at Lake Tahoe. These injuries required exten­sive facial recon­struc­tive surgery, which includ­ed wiring her mouth shut and putting her on an all-liq­uid diet. She was unable to work for 10 weeks, but then returned almost good as new. Once she healed, that same year saw her star­ring in The Train Rob­bers along­side John Wayne

In 1975, Ann-Mar­gret was able to return to singing with the musi­cal Tom­my, for which she was again nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award for Best Actress. In total, she has actu­al­ly been nom­i­nat­ed for 10 Gold­en Globe Awards and has won five, includ­ing Best Actress in a Musi­cal or Com­e­dy for Tom­my. The late ’70s also brought on Joseph Andrews (1977), The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), and the thriller film Mag­ic, with the leg­endary Antho­ny Hop­kins in 1978.

MAGIC, from left: Antho­ny Hop­kins, Ann-Mar­gret, 1978, TM & Copy­right © 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Col­lec­tion

MAGIC, from left: Antho­ny Hop­kins, Ann-Mar­gret, 1978, TM & Copy­right © 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Col­lec­tion

The ’80s con­tin­ued with more suc­cess, though she did lose the role of Sandy in 1978’s Grease to Olivia New­ton-John. Ann-Mar­gret was orig­i­nal­ly up for the part, but at 37 years old, she was deemed too old to play a con­vinc­ing high school stu­dent. In 1982, she actu­al­ly starred along­side Grease’sDinah Manoff in the film ver­sion of I Ought to Be in Pic­tures. That same year, she would appear along­side six-year-old Angeli­na Jolie in Lookin’ to Get Out. The actress also starred in the TV movie Who Will Love My Chil­dren? (1983) and a remake of A Street­car Named Desire (1984).

By the 2000s, she had just made her first appear­ance on stage in a musi­cal in a tour­ing pro­duc­tion of The Best Lit­tle Whore­house in Texas. She also played Jim­my Fallon’s moth­er in the 2004 com­e­dy Taxi in addi­tion to hav­ing sup­port­ing roles in oth­er box office hits such as The Break-Up, with Jen­nifer Anis­ton and Vince Vaughn, and The San­ta Clause 3 with Tim Allen.

Viva Las Vegas (1964)