1. Ann-Margret's accolades include five Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award in addition to two Academy Award nominations and two Grammy nominations.
53 Facts About Ann-Margret
1. 2.
Ann-Margret released Born to be Wild, her first classic-rock album, in 2023.
3.
Ann-Margret Olsson was born on 28 April 1941, in Valsjobyn, Krokom Municipality, Jamtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina and Carl Gustav Olsson, a native of Ornskoldsvik.
4.
Ann-Margret described Valsjobyn as a small town of "lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic Circle".
5.
Ann-Margret's father had emigrated to the United States, but returned to Sweden in 1937 and married Anna Aronsson.
6.
Ann-Margret took her first dance lessons at the Marjorie Young School of Dance, showing natural ability from the start, easily mimicking all the steps.
7.
Ann-Margret's parents were supportive, and her mother made all of her costumes by hand.
8.
Ann-Margret continued to star in theater as she attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.
9.
Ann-Margret was part of a group known as the Suttletones, which went to the Dunes hotel and casino in Las Vegas, which headlined Tony Bennett and Al Hirt at the time.
10.
Ann-Margret said she dropped her last name before moving out to California, because when you are an entertainer, "mean things" can be written about you and she didn't want her parents to be hurt by anything written about her.
11.
Ann-Margret is a stepmother of three children of her husband Roger Smith, an actor, who later became her manager.
12.
Ann-Margret was featured in Triumph Motorcycles' official advertisements in the 1960s.
13.
Ann-Margret suffered three broken ribs and a fractured shoulder when she was thrown off a motorcycle in rural Minnesota in 2000.
14.
Ann-Margret began recording for RCA Victor in 1961, first recording "Lost Love".
15.
Ann-Margret was recorded in Hollywood, arranged and conducted by Marty Paich.
16.
Ann-Margret scored a minor success with "I Just Don't Understand", which entered the Billboard Top 40 in August 1961 and stayed six weeks, peaking at number 17; the song was later performed by the Beatles in 1963.
17.
In 1962, Ann-Margret was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
18.
Ann-Margret's only charting album was Beauty and the Beard, on which she was accompanied by trumpeter Al Hirt.
19.
In 1961, Ann-Margret filmed a screen test at 20th Century Fox and was signed to a seven-year contract.
20.
Ann-Margret made her film debut in a loan-out to United Artists in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis; it is a remake of Capra's own Lady for a Day.
21.
Ann-Margret had previously tested for the part of Margie, the "good girl", but the studio bosses deemed her too seductive for that role.
22.
Ann-Margret sang the ballad "The Littlest Lamb" as a lullaby as well as the rocker, "Ain't Gonna Be a Fool".
23.
Ann-Margret met Elvis Presley on the MGM soundstage when the two filmed Viva Las Vegas.
24.
Ann-Margret was the best on-screen partner she ever had, and she was his.
25.
Choreographer David Winters was hired because Ann-Margret was his dance student and recommended him for the job.
26.
Ann-Margret would go on to become a common collaborator for both Presley and Ann-Margret.
27.
The first, Kitten with a Whip, saw Ann-Margret give a "balls-to-the-wall performance" as a juvenile delinquent who entraps a politician.
28.
Ann-Margret followed up with The Pleasure Seekers, yet another musical romantic comedy.
29.
Ann-Margret was excited to do her next project, Bus Riley's Back in Town; its writer William Inge had penned her favorite film Splendor in the Grass.
30.
Ann-Margret then featured in Once a Thief, a crime film intended to be a star-making vehicle for French actor Alain Delon in the United States.
31.
Ann-Margret's agent had turned down the role without telling her.
32.
Ann-Margret broke her flop streak with The Cincinnati Kid, in which she played a femme fatale opposite Steve McQueen.
33.
Ann-Margret was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
34.
Ann-Margret required meticulous facial reconstructive surgery that required wiring her mouth shut and putting her on a liquid diet.
35.
Ann-Margret was an early choice of Allan Carr's to play the role of Sandy Dumbrowski in the 1978 film Grease.
36.
Ann-Margret starred opposite Bruce Dern in Middle Age Crazy.
37.
In Twice in a Lifetime Ann-Margret portrayed a waitress for whom Gene Hackman's character left his wife.
38.
In 1993, Ann-Margret starred in the hit comedy Grumpy Old Men reuniting with Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
39.
Ann-Margret's character returned for Grumpier Old Men, the equally successful sequel which this time co-starred Sophia Loren.
40.
Ann-Margret published an autobiography in 1994 titled Ann-Margret: My Story, in which she publicly acknowledged her battle with and ongoing recovery from alcoholism.
41.
Ann-Margret played Belle Watling in Scarlett, a television miniseries loosely based on the 1991 book of the same name written by Alexandra Ripley as a sequel to Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind.
42.
Ann-Margret filmed Any Given Sunday for director Oliver Stone, portraying the mother of football team owner Cameron Diaz.
43.
Ann-Margret filmed a cameo appearance for The Limey, but her performance was cut from the movie.
44.
Ann-Margret starred in several television films, including Queen: The Story of an American Family, Following Her Heart, and Life of the Party, the latter of which she received nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
45.
Ann-Margret made guest appearances on the television show Touched by an Angel in 2000 and three episodes of Third Watch in 2003.
46.
Ann-Margret played Jimmy Fallon's mother in the 2004 comedy Taxi, co-starring Queen Latifah.
47.
In 2001, Ann-Margret worked with Art Greenhaw on the album God Is Love: The Gospel Sessions.
48.
Ann-Margret 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.
49.
In November 2005, Ann-Margret reunited with Chuck Day and Mickey Jones for an encore of their 1966 USO tour for veterans and troops at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
50.
Ann-Margret starred in several independent films, such as Memory with Billy Zane and Dennis Hopper.
51.
Ann-Margret appeared in the Lifetime series, Army Wives, in the episode "Guns and Roses", which originally aired 9May 2010.
52.
Ann-Margret provided the voice of a fictionalized version of herself in The Flintstones 1963 episode "Ann-Margrock Presents".
53.
For two years, Ann-Margret was voted by movie exhibitors as being among the more popular actors in the United States:.