Ann-Margret

Actress, singer, and dancer Ann-Margret excelled in two areas of entertainment during a career that was still going strong in its fifth decade: as a movie star, she appeared in more than 50 feature films and as a stage entertainer she performed as a headlining act in showrooms and theaters around the world. To a lesser extent, she found time periodically for television and recordings. Early in her career, emphasis was placed on her attractiveness and sexual appeal; she was marketed as a kind of red-haired American version of Brigitte Bardot. But her talent allowed her to outlive that image, and eventually, while working regularly, she earned Academy, Emmy, and Grammy Award nominations, as well as several Golden Globes in recognition of her film and TV roles. Swedish-born Ann-Margret Olsson was the only child of Gustav Olsson and Anna (Aronsson) Olsson. Her father, an electrician, had lived in the U.S. for many years, and when she was a year old he moved back to America where he found work in the suburbs of Chicago and saved up to bring his wife and child over. Meanwhile, Ann-Margret began displaying an interest in singing and dancing from the age of three. She and her mother finally arrived in the U.S. in 1946, settling in Fox Lake, IL. There, Ann-Margret took singing, dancing, and piano lessons as a child; she became a naturalized American citizen in 1949. In the summer of 1957, while competing in a TV talent contest in Chicago, she was seen by Ted Mack, host of the national series The Original Amateur Hour, who put her on the show. Later that summer, she spent a month singing with the Danny Ferguson band at the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City. Her first recording came in January 1959. It was an amateur effort, an album made of a show put on by the Tri-Ship Club at...