{"id":83053,"date":"2026-04-28T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=83053"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:51:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:51:27","slug":"happy-birthday-ann-margret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=83053","title":{"rendered":"“I don’t cook and I don’t care.” — Ann-Margret"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nAnn-Margret entertaining US troops in Vietnam, 1966<\/i><\/p>\n

Today is Ann-Margret’s birthday. Her autobiography, Ann-Margret: My Story<\/a>\"\"<\/i> is wonderful. What a career. And it’s still unfolding. There are so many classic scenes. Tommy<\/i>. Carnal Knowledge<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Of course, too, there is the Elvis connection and that is what I will write about today, although there are so many other phases to her extraordinary career. These are edited re-posts on Viva Las Vegas<\/i>, the one film she did with Elvis. One of his best, partially because of her presence, and their onscreen chemistry. In a perfect world, the two of them would have made 5 or 6 movies together, instead of just the one.<\/p>\n

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More on Viva Las Vegas – and him, and her – below the jump:<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s no secret the two had a love affair. They remained friends to the end, and she was one of the only Hollywood people who made the trip to Memphis for Elvis’ funeral. The two of them were raised in similar old-fashioned conservative ways, and that was one of the ways in which they bonded, as she describes in her book: Respect for your elders, do the right thing, be kind and polite, grateful for what you have, etc. The entire time they were dating, Ann-Margret was living with her parents, and Elvis would come over, and have dinner, and hang out with her family, and do all the things a good old-fashioned boyfriend is supposed to do. He “got it”. <\/p>\n

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\nAnd while we don’t know about the sex they had, and neither should we, we do know Elvis bought her a gigantic round bed. You figure it out. Beautifully, the check for the damn bed ($780.00) is on display at Graceland, with a note in Elvis’ handwriting in the Memo section: “Personal gift for home of Miss Ann Margret.” <\/p>\n

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The two of them were fish-out-of-water in the brutal and selfish atmosphere of Hollywood show-biz, and they found comfort and ease in one another’s company. They would drive around the Hollywood hills, park the car (or the motorcycles), looking out over the skyline, and talk about things. <\/p>\n

Ann-Margret wrote in her book, bluntly, “I will never recover from Elvis’ death.”<\/p>\n

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While she devotes a chapter to their relationship, she does not give away much, and never speaks of him in anything less than a complimentary way. She refuses to dig up “dirt”. <\/p>\n

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Watch this extraordinary clip of Charlie Rose’s interview with Ann-Margret: her quiet firmness, her insistence on the boundary she’s set, the heartbreak still there. Elvis trusted<\/i> her. To betray his trust would be unthinkable, even from beyond the grave. <\/p>\n

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