by Stephen Vagg
Most 1960s film buffs enjoy playing the “guess the true life analogy game” when looking at Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). X was real. Y was fake. Z was a compendium.
There are many candidates for male actors who inspired the character of Rick Dalton (played by Leo di Caprio). George Peppard. George Maharis. George Chakiris. Burt Reynolds. Ty Hardin.
But there’s a female star who had a similar-ish trajectory. Sudden fame. Next big thing vibes. Overhype. A series of flops, in part due to signing a contract with Universal. An “if only I had played that part” missed casting opportunity like Dalton with The Great Escape. A conservative image out of place in the Hollywood of the late ‘60s. An Italian sojourn. A genuine love for acting. A comeback. Iconic status.
She was a bigger star than Rick ever was. The fall was greater, the bounce back stronger.
I’m talking about…Ann-Margret.
She makes a cameo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in a way – her name is on a movie poster, and when Sharon Tate (as played by Margot Robbie) goes to see herself in the movie, she catches a trailer for the Ann-Margret film CC and Company (1970).
But how does she parallel Rick Dalton? To answer that, we have to go back to the beginning.
She was born Ann-Margret Ohlsson in Sweden in 1941 and moved to the USA when she was six. She sang and danced from an early age and started appearing in local television shows and stage plays throughout her teens.
Ann-Margret’s rise to fame was, like Rick’s, quite rapid. She was a college student who had toured with a jazz combo when she auditioned for George Burns. Burns hired her for his show at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas which led to a recording contract with RCA Victor, and a seven year non-exclusive contract with 20th Century Fox, who were then still trying to build their own young talent (before Cleopatra ended all that).
After guest-starring on Jack Benny’s TV show, Ann-Margret was hired by Frank Capra to play Bette Davis’ daughter in Pocketful of Miracles (1961), the director’s dated, erratic remake of his own Lady for a Day (1933). Ann-Margret sings a song and is sweet in a small but important part, one of the best things about the movie; she certainly made more of an impact than the bloke who plays her fiancee, another “discovery” Peter Mann.
Back at Fox, Ann-Margret auditioned for the role of the innocent farm girl in another remake, State Fair (1962), but instead was cast in the part of the trashy singer who romances the farm girls’ brother (Pat Boone). Ann-Margret shook and shimmied and looked fantastic but she wasn’t that well cast as a bad girl. Because she had so much energy and shape, producers thought she was; but she was more effective in parts closer to what she was in real life: an energetic good girl with a twinkle in the eye.
Before that film was released, Ann-Margret became “industry famous” when she sang at the Academy Awards presentation in 1962. This led to George Sidney casting her in the lead of Bye Bye Birdie (1963) at Columbia, Ann-Margret’s first non-remake and first hit. The film hasn’t entirely aged well and the changes from the original stage musical were not always smart, but it was colourful and Ann-Margret stole the show as an energetic good girl with, you guessed it, a twinkle in the eye.
“I’ve been in this business 30 years and seen no one with her fire,” gushed Sidney. “When she goes, it’s electric.” There’s a famous story about the wrap party for Bye Bye Birdie where apparently male executive after male executive got up and said how awesome Ann-Margret was and what a huge star she would become. Then co-star Maureen Stapleton, who was fond of the odd cleansing ale, got up and said “gee, I guess I’m the only one here who doesn’t want to fuck Ann-Margret.”
The hype only got bigger when Ann-Margret was cast opposite Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas (1964), directed by Sidney for MGM. She had so much energy and pep that she had blown her previous three male co-stars off screen, but Elvis could match her. He was the best on-screen partner she ever had, and she was his. It’s the most purely entertaining Elvis movie ever, a complete delight and it’s unbelievable they were never teamed again. The film was another hit and helped Ann-Margret be voted the 8th biggest star at the box office in 1964. The Wall Street Journal did a profile on her, focusing on her rise to fame and now-considerable earning capacity. The Flintstones immortalised her as a character, “Ann- Margrock.” Only four years after struggling to get a gig in Vegas, she was the biggest young star in Hollywood.
Then the cold streak began.
Ann-Margret’s next film was a change of pace, Kitten with a Whip (1964), playing a bad girl who isn’t that bad, who torments politician John Forsythe. The film, made at Universal by director Doug Heyes has become a cult item due to its title, poster and Ann-Margret’s balls-to-the-wall performance in the title role. This movie is much mocked but could have been a great little exploitation flick with ‘Something to Say’ – it has some good moments, a decent cast, a story full of potential, and a very charismatic star. However, it is let down by dopey scripting and Universal’s (typical) scrimping on the budget. A random observation: Kitten in the Whip is a little reminiscent of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958) with its Mexican border setting and juvenile delinquents; Harry Keller, who did the notorious reshoots on Evil, was producer on Kitten.
Fox called Ann-Margret back for another remake (her third), The Pleasure Seekers (1964), a musical re-do of Three Coins in the Fountain co-starring Pamela Tiffin and Carole Lynley. The film is fun but hampered by the fact Ann-Margret’s the only lead actor who can sing and dance, and it’s, well, a musical. In this, as in many of her films around this time, Ann-Margret is often shot changing out of clothes; a little bit of that is entertaining but it happened so often to give the movies a dirty old man pervy vibe. (Eg this clip from Bye Bye Birdie.
The Pleasure Seekers was widely seen but lost money and the star now had two disappointments in a row.
Her physicality was heavily exploited in Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) though not nearly as much as male lead Michel Parks, who plays one of writer William Inge’s many broody good-looking studs who causes small town pulses to race. Ann-Margret wrote in her memoir that she was excited at the thought of doing an Inge screenplay as she had written her favourite film, Splendor in the Grass.
Parts of Bus Reilly are actually effective, but this was made at Universal who, as in Kitten with a Whip, did it on the cheap. Films like this need to be done with more care and money – or a better director than Harvey Hart, who was fine, but no Elia Kazan. Inge took his name off the movie after additional footage was shot involving Ann-Margret. Looking at the film today, there was nothing wrong with giving her character more screen time, it’s just that it was done badly. (Rick Dalton had a similarly unhappy relationship with Universal, a studio who also wrecked George Peppard’s career as movie star).
Ann-Margret tried to change direction again, in a gritty-ish crime drama starring Alain Delon, Once a Thief (1965), the first of a three-picture deal at MGM. She looks terrific but was wasted in a “girl” part in a film that was really geared to launch Delon to American audiences. It was not a bad movie and at least had aspirations to quality, but it just – as with Kitten and Bus Riley – couldn’t quite live up to its ambition. Ann-Margret now had four flops in a row.
She got some box office groove back playing the femme fatale who goes after Steve McQueen in MGM’s The Cincinnati Kid (1965). It was a stock “bad girl” part but Ann-Margret was in excellent company (Norman Jewison, Edward G. Robinson, etc) and the film, also for MGM, was her first commercial hit that critics also liked. She was announced for a part in The Yellow Rolls Royce (1965) but did not appear in the final film.
Made in Paris (1966) was a star vehicle for MGM, with the plot mainly consisting of Ann-Margret going to Paris and changing clothes. This should have been fun – producer Joe Pasternak built his career on bright wish-fulfilment stuff like this – but it misses, hurt particularly by dodgy writing and uninspiring male leads.
Ann-Margret was top-billed in the remake of Stagecoach (1966) for Fox, playing the old Claire Trevor role as the prostitute. The film was a hit (something often forgotten) and is not bad to watch – Quentin Tarantino recently championed it on a podcast – but like her three previous remakes, never really escapes the shadow of its original.
The Swinger (1966) reunited Ann-Margret with George Sidney, this time at Paramount. It’s a hopelessly confused comedy with a few musical numbers where the star plays a girl who for some reason wants to impress the publisher of a girlie magazine so they publish her stories…? Or something. It feels like it was written by someone while drunk and Tony Franciosa is yet another male lead not worthy of the star. There’s a scene where Ann-Margret is in a bikini and rolls around in pint with beatniks. Teri Garr doubled her, which is cool. I think this film, a vehicle geared entirely around Ann-Margret’s talents, came close to killing her Hollywood career more than any other by virtue of its sheer incompetence.
Desperate for a hit, Ann-Margret accepted the part of Dean Martin’s female lead in a Matt Helm film at Columbia, Murderer’s Row (1966). It was a success but by now Ann-Margret had flop smell all over her. Since Vegas, her only three successful films (the Matt Helm, Stagecoach, Cincinnati Kid) had been parts any girl could have played. Several vehicles geared specifically to her talents stiffed (The Swinger, Made in Paris).
Like Rick Dalton, Ann-Margret had her own one-that-got-away. She was, she later claimed, offered Cat Ballou (1965) but her managers turned it down and Jane Fonda took the part instead. In an alternative universe, could Ann-Margaret have had Fonda’s career? Maybe. The two were definitely different politically (while Fonda became a noted anti-war activist Ann-Margret performed for the troops in Vietnam – something she apparently turned down a part in Casino Royale (1967) to do).
Ann-Margret needed more careful handling as an actor than Fonda; for all her great talent, Ann-Margret was more liable to overact. But she could sing and dance, which Fonda couldn’t. And with a good director, Ann-Margret could be an excellent comic and dramatic actor – there’s no reason she couldn’t have done Barefoot in the Park (1967), They Shoot Horses Don’t They (1969), and Klute (1971) as well as Fonda. Problem is, Ann-Margret struggled to get the good directors. (I’m also surprised she was never tapped for any of those uber musicals that followed in the wake of the success of The Sound of Music. Apparently, she was going to star in an adaptation of the Lucille Ball stage musical Wildcat, but it never happened).
In the late 1960s, Ann-Margret decided, like Rick Dalton, to get out of town and over to Europe. She made four films there, two with Vittorio Gassman, The Tiger and the Pussycat (1967) and The Prophet (1967), plus Seven Men and One Brain (1967) and Rebus (1968), the latter with Laurence Harvey.
Neither did much business in English-speaking countries, and Ann-Margret was becoming forgotten in Hollywood. There was every chance her career as a movie star was done.
But Ann-Margret had a superpower – she could sing and dance. By the late ‘60s, she also had new management in the form of her husband, former 77 Sunset Strip actor Roger Smith and agent Allan Carr. (Some trivia – Smith’s first wife Victoria Shaw was an Aussie who had been in The Phantom Stockman with Chips Rafferty). That new management put Ann-Margret in some TV specials which reminded everyone of the talent the lady had. They turned down roles in The Maltese Bippy (1969) and Song of Norway (1970) to appear in more prestigious films. She went into RPM (1970) for Stanley Kramer and CC and Company (1970) where she starred alongside Joe Namath from a script by Roger Smith. Both films were flops, though have small cults. CC and Company is a remarkably poor vehicle for Ann-Margret considering it was written by her husband: Ann-Margret would have been perfect to star in a female biker film (she rode bikes as a hobby IRL) but this movie is constructed around Namath with the female lead very much “The Girl”.
Then Mike Nichols came calling with Carnal Knowledge (1971) and the role of a lifetime: the depressed, lonely, angry model who partners with Jack Nicholson to the regret of both. It’s a powerful, incendiary movie that you probably shouldn’t watch with your partner if your relationship is going through a rough patch. Ann-Margret’s performance earned her an Oscar nomination, deservedly.
So, she was back. In a way. Because she never really regained her former status as an above-the-title star of feature films – her follow-up movies were “girl” parts (The Outside Man, The Train Robbers). The seventies were tough times for female stars who were not Barbra Streisand. It didn’t help that in 1972, Ann-Margret suffered a major accident while performing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, falling 22 feet from an elevated platform on stage and breaking her left arm, cheekbone, and jawbone, requiring facial reconstructive surgery. There was a long-running battle with alcohol and pills too.
However, Ann-Margret recovered from the accident and her addictions, and her career surged on. She became a huge star on stage – a 1983 Los Angeles Times article said she could charge $300,000 for a week of shows at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. And she did score some decent film roles. She went all out in Ken Russell’s Tommy (1975), famously sliding around in baked beans and getting another Oscar nomination in the process. She stole the show in Tony Richardson’s otherwise-disappointing Joseph Andrews (1977), and was one of the best things about The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), The Cheap Detective (1978) and Magic (1979). She showed her versatility in The Return of the Soldier (1982) and cracked wise to great effect in Lookin’ to Get Out (1982) and I Ought to Be in Pictures (1983).
In the 1980s, Ann-Margret stepped into the world of TV movies, which gave her the chance for the first proper film leads since… well, since The Swinger. She received superb reviews for Who Will Love My Children? (1983), A Streetcar Named Desire (1984) and The Two Mrs Grenvilles (1987). In the 1980s, TV movies were often poo-pooed by the feature film crowd but female movie stars had, on the whole, better roles on the small screen.
Since then, Ann-Margret has never stopped being a star. In feature films, she was stuck being the Girl, but sometimes those films were fun eg. 52 Pick Up (1986), Grumpy Old Men (1993). She had more leading roles in television (eg Life of the Party) before beginning the inevitable slide into guest star shots on episodic TV… but she still gets better gigs than most of her contemporaries.
So, Roger Smith, for all the wonkiness of CC and Company’s script, helped guide his wife’s career very well.
What lessons can be learned from the career as Ann-Margret? For me, the following:
* If you’ve got a lot of onscreen energy and charisma make sure the actor who plays your love interest can match it.
* Work with the best directors you can.
* If you can sing and dance, keep finding things to do where you can sing and dance.
* Be born good looking.
* Being a big box office star is not as important as a long varied career and the secret to the latter is professionalism and versatility. And being born good looking.
* Have a good manager and marriage and if they involve the same person, then great. Ann-Margret and Roger Smith were married 50 years until his death in 2017.
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