I Was in LIFE: Ann-Margret Remembers

6 minute read

Fifty-odd years ago, a young singer/dancer on the verge of breaking into the movies visited LIFE magazine’s Los Angeles bureau—and for once, the news hounds who worked there were speechless.

“Everybody was working on typewriters back then, so it was very noisy,” remembers the legendary editor Richard Stolley, who was L.A. bureau chief at the time. “I’m sitting in my office and suddenly it got quiet. All the typewriters stopped. I thought, ‘What the hell is going on?’ So I got up and I walked to the door. And what was happening? Ann-Margret was walking through the newsroom.”

Here, Stolley and Ann-Margret herself reminisce about those long-ago daysdays that remain distinct in both of their memories.

“That,” Stolley says of the picture at left, “is what you were wearing when you came in to the bureau.”

“It was a light blue, lambswool sweater,” Ann-Margret recalls, laughing. “That’s the only outfit I had at the time. The only one! Oh, dear.”

In the decades since that first encounter, Stolley served as the top editor of both LIFE and PEOPLE magazines, and that fresh-faced 19-year-old starlet did pretty well for herself, too: Ann-Margret, born Ann-Margret Olsson in Stockholm, became one of Hollywood’s sexiest, most vivacious stars, her energy and talent lighting up movies as varied as Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas and Tommy. Through the years, the great journalist, now 84, and the marvelous actress, now 72, have remained dear friends.

For this LIFE.com feature, the two of them reminisced over photos made by Grey Villet (“Oh, I loved him,” she says of the late LIFE photographer) for the 1961 LIFE article that introduced Ann-Margret as a hot Hollywood prospect while she auditioned for a role in the film, State Fair.

Many of the photos in this gallery were not originally published in LIFE.

Below are some excerpts from their chat:

STOLLEY: How important was the LIFE story to your career?

ANN-MARGRET: It was incredibly important. I had not done anything—nobody knew me. I was amazed and shocked. What can I say? My parents were just beaming.

STOLLEY: The opening page on that story had a picture of you pointing, and the headline was “Who, Me? $10,000 a Week!” That was what we predicted would be your salary if you got the role in State Fair. How did you feel about $10,000 a week?

ANN-MARGRET: I had never heard of such money! That’s just sci-fi.

STOLLEY: How old were you when you came over to the States from Sweden?

ANN-MARGRET: Six years old. And it was my mother and I, because daddy had come to America [earlier] looking for work. That was during the war, and he thought it was much too dangerous for mother and I to cross the ocean. So five years later, my mother and I got on a huge ship and came to America. And neither one of us, of course, spoke English.

STOLLEY: There’s an unpublished picture here [the final image in this gallery] which is kind of fascinating. It’s you walking down the dusty back-lot street with a big, long shadow in front of you. The reason I like it is because it’s kind of a precursor, a forecast of the long shadow you were going to cast over Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

ANN-MARGRET: I had no idea at the time. Of anything.

STOLLEY: Nor did Grey, but he took a very prescient photograph. When I say something like that, what’s your reaction looking at this picture?

ANN-MARGRET: I’d never been to Los Angeles. Never. I wanted to be a …. [Trails off and chokes up] I can’t, I’m starting to cry!

STOLLEY: Don’t do that—I’m sorry.

ANN-MARGRET: When you guys [at LIFE.com] sent me all these photographs, what a rush. It all came back to me. It’s just . . . I’m so blessed.

On the screen test chronicled in Grey Villet’s photos: “Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. So nervous! I had the scene to do, the acting scene, and I had never done any acting. I mean, I had been a performer, singing and dancing, but I had not taken any acting lessons or anything.”

On George Burns, who gave Ann-Margret her first break as a singer and dancer in a Vegas show: When she auditioned for Burns, she said, she “wore the light blue lambswool sweater and the black stockings and little black one-inch shoes that I had worn all through the summer, because that’s all I had! And that’s the way Mr. Burns saw me. So on opening night, that’s what I wore. But then I searched all over the place for something that I thought would be really nice in Las Vegas, and it was more money than I had ever spent. It was an orangey-red velvet pantsuit, and pantsuits were just coming into style. And at dress rehearsal Mr. Burns saw this outfit, and he said [mimicking Burns’ famous rasp], ‘Where’s the sweater and pants that you wore on the audition—the tight sweater and the tight pants?’ And I said, ‘Well, I thought that this was really nice and that you’d like it.’ And he said, ‘People don’t want to only hear your voice, they want to see where it’s coming from!'” She laughs. “I never forgot that one.”

“I learned so much from him,” she reflects. “He loved to rehearse and I did, too. I would go over to his home and when we did a number, the singing and dancing, the final word was always [his wife] Gracie’s. She would come downstairs, she would sit on the couch, and if she liked it, we would do it. And if she didn’t, we’d have to fix it.”

“I sang for him on his hundredth birthday,” she recalls, fondly. “I sang, ‘I’ve Got a Crush on You.'”

Ann-Margret, 1961
Ann-Margret, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, 1961
Ann-Margret consults with costume designer Don Feld about what she'll wear during a screen test, 1961. Grey Villet/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ann-Margret, 1961
Ann-Margret takes a break from screen-test rehearsals and dines with actor Peter Brown (of the TV Western Lawman) at Har-Omar restaurant in Hollywood, 1961. Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret takes a break from screen-test rehearsals and dines with actor Peter Brown (of the TV Western Lawman) at Har-Omar restaurant in Hollywood, 1961. Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, Robert Parrish, David Hedison
Ann-Margret looks over a script with the screen test's director, Robert Parrish, and the actor who would read opposite her, David Hedison. The movie Fox was casting, State Fair, had been made twice previously, including a 1945 version starring Jeanne Crain as a sweet girl in love.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret face-to-face with actor David Hedison, 1961.
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret face-to-face with actor David Hedison, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret and David Hedison rehearse a scene outside on Fox's back lot, 1961. Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret with actor David Hedison, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, Hollywood, 1961
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret, Hollywood, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, 1961
Not published in LIFE. Studio hairdresser Helen Turpin takes care of Ann-Margret for her State Fair audition in 1961 — with orders from the film's director to give her a "kind of wild, Alice in Wonderland look."Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret In Makeup
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. Outfitted for a screen test, Ann-Margret sits with costume designer Don Feld, 1961. Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret studies costume designer Don Feld's quick sketch of what she'd wear during the second half of her screen test.
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret studies costume designer Don Feld's quick sketch of what she'd wear during the second half of her screen test — a slightly sexier version of the outfit she wore just about every day. "These tights are good for you," Feld told her, according to LIFE's story. "At no time do we ever see less than a complete leg." Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret launches into the song-and-dance half of her screen test, during which she performed the old jazz standard "Bill Bailey" wearing that memorable combo of lambswool sweater and black leotard. Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret performs during a screen test, 1961.Grey Villet—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret and George Burns
Not published in LIFE. At some point during the shoot for LIFE, Ann-Margret visited with her mentor, the legendary George Burns, in a prop room of a studio where he kept an office, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. With help from friend Scott Smith on piano, Ann-Margret auditions for Dick Pierce (far left) and others at RCA Victor Records, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Not published in LIFE. To fully illustrate the Ann-Margret story for LIFE, Villet traveled to Fox Lake, Illinois, where he photographed the starlet with her loving family. She, her parents, and her aunts and uncles had all immigrated to the United States from Sweden. Her father stands above her at far left, above, and her mother is in the middle of the photo.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret with family and friends, Fox Lake, Illinois, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret dances with her father, 1961
Ann-Margret dances with her father, 1961. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret's Uncle Roy gives her you a playful spanking after she tried to tickle him, 1961. "It's wonderful," she says, "that Grey [Villet, the photographer] was there to capture that moment."Grey Villet/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ann-Margret, 1961
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret with her uncle, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, 1961
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret, Fox Lake, Illinois, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. In Los Angeles, Ann-Margret practices her golf stroke in the office of her manager, Pierre Cossette, as her friend Scott Smith (far left) and another acquaintance look on, 1961. Grey Villet/TIME & LIFE Pictures
Ann-Margret
Not published in LIFE. At her manager Pierre Cossette's house, Ann-Margret and friends gather, 1961. From the reporter's notes: "Whenever these kids get together they perform for one another; that is, they did not stage this hoedown strictly for [photographer Grey] Villet's benefit."Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, 1961
According to the reporter's notes, in this photo Ann-Margret was "exploring the back lot alone and doing a few exuberant leaps around the deserted western street." But the image was so joyful that LIFE used it to illustrate Ann-Margret's good news, which came after Grey Villet had finished shooting: She'd nailed the screen test and scored a movie contract with Fox.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Ann-Margret, 1961
Not published in LIFE. Ann-Margret on a studio back lot, Hollywood, 1961.Grey Villet—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images

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