Ann-Margret

The Fall That Could Have Been the End

In 1972, Ann-Margret fell from a 23-foot platform during a performance in Lake Tahoe. The impact shattered her jaw and broke several facial bones. Doctors had to rebuild her face with titanium plates while the press of the time was already writing her professional obituary.

And they were wrong.

Before that accident, she had already survived the label of simple object of desire that Hollywood pinned on her in the sixties. She was born in a small town in Sweden in 1941 and arrived in the United States without speaking a word of English. Her father worked in a funeral home while she dreamed of the musicals she heard on the radio.

George Burns discovered her in Las Vegas when she was still a teenager. In 1961, she made her film debut in Pocketful of Miracles under Frank Capra's direction. But the world didn't really take notice of her until she appeared singing in front of the camera in the opening of Bye Bye Birdie in 1963.

Elvis's Shadow and a Change of Direction

In 1964, she shot Viva Las Vegas, and the chemistry with Elvis Presley was so obvious that it put the singer's marriage in jeopardy. Studios tried to sell her as the female version of the King of Rock and Roll. The gamble worked for a while, but she wanted more than shaking her hips in lightweight comedies.

Because Ann-Margret always had an iron discipline that clashed with her image as an explosive sex symbol. For years she accepted mediocre roles to maintain her standing in the industry. But in 1971, Mike Nichols offered her the role of Bobbie in Carnal Knowledge, and everything changed overnight.

It was her rebirth.

She worked alongside Jack Nicholson in a raw drama that earned her her first Oscar nomination. No one expected that actress of musicals to hold such a broken, vulnerable gaze. In 1975, she earned another nomination with Tommy, where she showed she could bathe in champagne and baked beans for Ken Russell without losing her dignity.

Surviving in the Industry

In the 1980s, she turned to TV movies and the stages of Las Vegas. She won a Golden Globe in 1984 for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire for the small screen. She never stopped working, even when the industry began to overlook actresses over fifty.

Roger Smith gave up his own acting career to manage his wife's until the end of his days. Together they formed one of the most solid marriages in a Hollywood that often devours long-term relationships. In 2010, the Television Academy awarded her an Emmy for her appearance in the series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

In 2017, she starred in the comedy A Stylish Crime alongside Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. In 2021, she filmed The Queen Bee Club on location in Georgia. Roger Smith died in June 2017 at age 84 in a hospital in Sherman Oaks.