Ann-Margret (Ann-Margaret Olsson), b. Valsjobyn, Sweden, 1941

Ann-Margret (Ann-Margaret Olsson), b. Valsjobyn, Sweden, 1941

People everywhere are fondly inclined to Ann-Margret. There does not seem to be an excess of personality in the fifty-year-old. But they remember the very exciting dancer, with sucli avid eyes, and they rejoice in her survival. Having come to America as a child, she attended Northwestern University and was working in nightclubs as a singer-dancer when George Burns discovered her. (Did this add thirty years to his life?) Most of her early films were wretched, but she was one of the best and most provocative partners Elvis ever had, and she surprised most people with her vulnerability as a sexpot yearning for domesticity in Carnal Knowledge (71, Mike Nichols).
Her movies were Pocketful of Miracles (61, Frank Capra); State Fair (62, JosiS Ferrer); Bye Bye Birdie (63, George Sidney); very exciting and commanding in Viva Las Vegas (64, Sidney); Kitten With a Whip (64, Douglas Heyes); The Pleasure Seekers (65, Jean Ne-gulesuo); Bus Riley’s Bavk in Town (65, Harvey Hart); Once a Thief (65, Ralph Nelson); The Cincinnati Kid (63, Norman Jewison); Made in Paris (66, Boris Sagal); Stagecoach (66, Gordon Douglas); The Swinger (66, Sidney); ll Tigre (67, Dino Risi); ll’Profeta (68, Risi); Sette Uomini e tin Cervello (70, Edward Ross); C.C. and Company (70, Seymour Robbie); KP.M. (70, Stanley Kramer); The Train Robbers (73, Burt Kennedy); Tommy (75, Ken Russell); as Lady Booby in Joseph Andrews (76, Tony Richardson); The Last Remake of Beau Geste (77, Marry Feldman); Mogie (78, Richard Attenborough).
She had a famous fall from a Las Vegas stage, and came back. She looked after her manager and husband, Roger Smith, when he was ill. And as she approached the age oi’ forty, she was an increasingly impressive beauty. )n movies, she might seldom be much more than decoration; The Cheap Detective (78, Robert Moore); The Villain (79, Hal Needham); Middle Age Crazy (80, John Trent); The Return of the Soldier (81, Alan Bridges); I Ought to Be In Pictures (82, Herbert Ross); Lookin’ to Get Out (82, Hal Ashby); Twice in a Lifetime (85, BudYorkin); 52 Pick-Up (86, John Frankenheimer); A Tiger’s Tale (87, Peter Douglas); and A New Life (88, Alan Alda).
But she has been more eminent on TV, where her castled beauty and the intriguingly shy details of her acting were well suited to the medium, even if she hardly altered from soap opera to Tennessee Williams—she massages disparate scripts into the medium of one magnificently sated look. She has done four big TV productions, all with John Erman as director, as the dying mother in Who Wilt Love My Children? (83); as a soft-focus Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire (84); The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (87); and Our Sons (91). She was the sweet filling In the sandwich of Grumpy Old Men (93, Donald Petrie).

Ann-Margret (Ann-Margaret Olsson), b. Valsjobyn, Sweden, 1941

People everywhere are fondly inclined to Ann-Margret. There does not seem to be an excess of personality in the fifty-year-old. But they remember the very exciting dancer, with sucli avid eyes, and they rejoice in her survival. Having come to America as a child, she attended Northwestern University and was working in nightclubs as a singer-dancer when George Burns discovered her. (Did this add thirty years to his life?) Most of her early films were wretched, but she was one of the best and most provocative partners Elvis ever had, and she surprised most people with her vulnerability as a sexpot yearning for domesticity in Carnal Knowledge (71, Mike Nichols).
Her movies were Pocketful of Miracles (61, Frank Capra); State Fair (62, JosiS Ferrer); Bye Bye Birdie (63, George Sidney); very exciting and commanding in Viva Las Vegas (64, Sidney); Kitten With a Whip (64, Douglas Heyes); The Pleasure Seekers (65, Jean Ne-gulesuo); Bus Riley’s Bavk in Town (65, Harvey Hart); Once a Thief (65, Ralph Nelson); The Cincinnati Kid (63, Norman Jewison); Made in Paris (66, Boris Sagal); Stagecoach (66, Gordon Douglas); The Swinger (66, Sidney); ll Tigre (67, Dino Risi); ll’Profeta (68, Risi); Sette Uomini e tin Cervello (70, Edward Ross); C.C. and Company (70, Seymour Robbie); KP.M. (70, Stanley Kramer); The Train Robbers (73, Burt Kennedy); Tommy (75, Ken Russell); as Lady Booby in Joseph Andrews (76, Tony Richardson); The Last Remake of Beau Geste (77, Marry Feldman); Mogie (78, Richard Attenborough).
She had a famous fall from a Las Vegas stage, and came back. She looked after her manager and husband, Roger Smith, when he was ill. And as she approached the age oi’ forty, she was an increasingly impressive beauty. )n movies, she might seldom be much more than decoration; The Cheap Detective (78, Robert Moore); The Villain (79, Hal Needham); Middle Age Crazy (80, John Trent); The Return of the Soldier (81, Alan Bridges); I Ought to Be In Pictures (82, Herbert Ross); Lookin’ to Get Out (82, Hal Ashby); Twice in a Lifetime (85, BudYorkin); 52 Pick-Up (86, John Frankenheimer); A Tiger’s Tale (87, Peter Douglas); and A New Life (88, Alan Alda).
But she has been more eminent on TV, where her castled beauty and the intriguingly shy details of her acting were well suited to the medium, even if she hardly altered from soap opera to Tennessee Williams—she massages disparate scripts into the medium of one magnificently sated look. She has done four big TV productions, all with John Erman as director, as the dying mother in Who Wilt Love My Children? (83); as a soft-focus Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire (84); The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (87); and Our Sons (91). She was the sweet filling In the sandwich of Grumpy Old Men (93, Donald Petrie).