Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex
symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She continued her career
through the following decades and into the 21st century.
Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, who worked for an electrical company. She came to America at age 6. She studied at Northwestern
University and left for Las Vegas to pursue a career as a singer. Ann-Margret was discovered by George Burns and
soon afterward got both a record deal at RCA and a film contract at
20th Century Fox. In 1961, her single "I Just Don't Understand" charted
in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Her acting debut
followed the same year as Bette Davis'
daughter in Frank Capra's
Die unteren Zehntausend (1961).
She appeared in the musical
Texas-Show (1962) a year later before
her breakthrough in 1963. With
Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and
Tolle Nächte in Las Vegas (1964) opposite
Elvis Presley, she became a Top 10 Box
Office star, teen idol and even Golden Globe nominated actress. She was
marketed as Hollywood's hottest young star and in the years to come got
awarded the infamous nickname "sex kitten." Her following pictures were
sometimes ripped apart by critics
(Widersteh, wenn du kannst (1965)
and The Swinger (1966)), sometimes
praised
(Cincinnati Kid (1965)).
She couldn't escape being typecast because of her great looks. By the
late 1960s, her career stalled, and she turned to Italy for new
projects. She returned and, by 1970, she was back in the public image
with Hollywood films (Kampf den Talaren (1970)
opposite Anthony Quinn), Las Vegas
sing-and-dance shows and her own television specials. She finally
overcame her image with her Oscar-nominated turn in
Mike Nichols'
Die Kunst zu lieben (1971) and
succeeded in changing her image from sex kitten to respected actress. A
near-fatal accident at a Lake Tahoe show in 1972 only momentarily
stopped her career. She was again Oscar-nominated in 1975 for
Tommy (1975), the rock opera film of the
British rock band The Who. Her career continued
with successful films throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. She
starred next to Anthony Hopkins
in Magic - Die Puppe des Grauens (1978) and appeared in pictures
co-starring Walter Matthau,
Gene Hackman,
Glenda Jackson and
Roy Scheider. She even appeared in a
television remake of Tennessee Williams's masterpiece play "A Streetcar
Named Desire" in 1983. Another late career highlight for her was
Ein verrücktes Paar (1993) as the
object of desire for Jack Lemmon and
Walter Matthau. She continues to act in
movies today.
