Oscar Profile #301: Ann-Margret

Born April 28, 1941 in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, Ann-Margret (Olsson) was the daughter of an employee of an electrical company. Her father got work in the U.S. in 1942, but did not send for his wife and daughter until 1946. Ann-Margret became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1949. She wanted to be a dancer ever since her father took her to Radio City Music Hall the day she arrived in New York and trained to be one at an early age. She quit Northwestern University in 1959 to pursue a career in Las Vegas where she was discovered by George Burns and immediately given a recording contract.

Ann-Margret made her film debut as Bette Davis’ daughter in 1961’s Pocketful of Miracles and played her first sex-kitten role opposite Pat Boone in 1962’s State Fair. Her performances in 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie and 1964’s Viva Las Vegas opposite Elvis Presley made her a top box-office star. She won kudos for her performance in 1965’s The Cincinnati Kid but most of her films of the 1960s, all of them a variation on her sex kitten persona, were dismissed by critics. She wasn’t taken seriously by the critics until Mike Nichols cast her opposite Jack Nicholson in 1971’s Carnal Knowledge for which she received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was nominated fur years later as Best Actress for Ken Russell’s film of the The Who’s Tommy.

Always popular with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, she won the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer – Female in 1961, was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for Bye, Bye, Birdie and won again as Best Supporting Actress for Carnal Knowledge and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for Tommy. She received a fifth Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Lady Booby in 1977’s Joseph Andrews. She would be nominated five more times for Golden Globes, winning twice, all for her TV work.

From this point on, Ann-Margret’s work on the big screen has been in mostly minor roles, but she has remained a big attraction in Las Vegas and other venues, while at the same time branching out to great success as a dramatic actress on TV where she has shown heretofore unexplored depth and versatility. She was unforgettable as the dying mother in 1983’s Who Will Love My Children? and as Blanche DuBois in 1984’s A Streetcar Named Desire, which led to two of her largest big screen roles in years in 1985’s Twice in a Lifetime and 1986’s 52 Pick-Up, followed by a virtuoso performance in TV’s The Two Mrs. Grenvilles in 1987.

In the 1990s she squared off opposite Julie Andrews in TV’s Our Sons and then played featured roles on the big screen in the likes of Newsies, Grumpy Old Men and Any Given Sunday. She played her last major role in TV’s A Place Called Home in 2004, but has continued to grace both the big and small screens in interesting supporting roles, on TV in the likes of Ray Donovan and on the big screen in such films as the forthcoming remake of Going in Style, the original version of which starred her mentor, George Burns.

Ann-Margret has been married to actor Roger Smith since 1967 and still looks stunning at the age of 75.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

WHO WILL LOVE MY CHILDREN? (1983), directed by John Erman

Ann-Margret turned her sex-kitten image on its head with her deeply moving portrayal of a farm wife and mother, who faced with terminal cancer, is determined to find homes for her ten children before she dies so that they do not become wards of the state because her loving but alcoholic husband with crippling arthritis can’t care for them. Frederic Forrest is also quite moving as the powerless husband. Barbara Stanwyck was so stunned when she won her Emmy for The Thorn Birds over Ann-Margret’s performance that she said so at the podium causing Ann-Margret to break out in tears in one of Emmy’s greatest moments.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1984), directed by John Erman

Ann-Margret proved her versatility again with her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in the first TV version of Tennessee Williams’ play, which restores Williams’ original ending. Treat Williams as Stanley, Beverly D’Angelo as Stella and Randy Quaid as Mitch also turn in vivid portrayals. It was nominated for eleven Emmys and won four in technical categories. Ann-Margret won the Golden Globe but lost the Emmy, this time to Jane Fonda in The Dollmaker. Treat Williams was nominated for a Golden Globe, but not an Emmy while Beverly D’Angelo and Randy Quaid were ignored by the Globes but nominated for Emmys.

THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES (1987), directed by John Erman

Dominick Dunne’s novel, based on a scandalous true-life study of a high society murder, was a highly anticipated TV event. Ann-Margret excels once again as the former chorus girl who shoots and kills the husband she’s grown tired of, claiming she thought he was a burglar. The legendary Claudette Colbert, at 84, was making her first filmed appearance since her big screen farewell in Parrish 26 years earlier as the mother-in-law who despises her, yet acts to protect her to avoid a scandal. Both were nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys with Colbert winning the Golden Globe.

OUR SONS (1991), directed by John Erman

Ann-Margret is a bigoted bitch living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, long estranged from her dying gay son (Zeljko Ivanek), whose life is intruded upon by well-to-do Julie Andrews from San Diego whose own gay son (Hugh Grant) has asked her to visit his lover’s mother and bring her to San Diego for a reunion with her son before it is too late. Erman, who directed Ann-Margret in her three great TV performances of the 1980s as well as this, was also the director of the superior multi-award winning groundbreaking AIDS drams, An Early Frost. No awards this time, but it’s still one of Ann-Margret’s, and Julie Andrews’, best.

A PLACE CALLED HOME (2004), directed by Michael Tuchner

In her last starring role to date, Ann-Margret is a still fantastic looking “elderly” widow slowly growing blind who enlists the aid of drifter Matthew Settle and his 12-year-old daughter, Shailene Woodley, in keeping her crumbling country house from falling into total disrepair and allowing the vultures, her nephew and niece, from having her declared mentally incompetent and seizing the property for their own advantage. It’s a somewhat standard Hallmark Hall of fame movie with a predictable outcome, but it’s handled with enough charm and grace to keep you interested long enough to see Ann-Margret triumph in the end.