Annie

Author’s Note:  This post is dedicated to Melissa Smith Ross.  Another beautiful dancer.

Can a little girl from a small town in Sweden find fame and fortune in Hollywood and end up going toe to toe dancing and singing with Elvis Presley?

If her name is Ann-Margret Olsson, you can bet your sweet motorcycle on it.

(You might have noticed that I started this post with a film clip instead of the usual photograph.  That’s because nothing but a moving picture can fully convey the magical essence of Ann-Margret.)

My high school, New Trier in Winnetka, Illinois has turned out many successful alumni. CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, high-ranking government officials, doctors, lawyers. Pillars of their respective communities all.

But the one area in which New Trier really shone was the singing, dancing and dramatic department.  All headed up in my day and embodied by one man- Dr. William J. Peterman.

This gifted teacher gave many would-be thespians coaching, guidance, criticism and their start on the yellow brick road that led to HollyOz.

And none of his fledglings flew higher than Ann-Margret.

Class of ’59, it was she- at Dr. Peterman’s instruction- who tore the house down when she performed “Heat Wave” in Lagniappe, our annual student talent show.

Legend has it that her rendition was so so steamy that parents left the auditorium in a state of shock.  Quiet and demure off- stage, she could really turn it on when the derrières were in the seats.

A-M then went on to Northwestern- famous for its theater department with a legend of its own at the helm- Alvina Krause.  But our Annie didn’t graduate.  She left with a troupe of singers headed west to make it in show biz.

When her group hit Las Vegas, Ann-Margret hit the jackpot.  George Burns singled her out and made her his protegée.  Under his tutelage, she learned more of the ropes and made plenty of important contacts.

In 1961 she filmed a screen test at 20th Century Fox and was signed to a seven year contract.

Then Frank Capra gave her her film debut alongside Bette Davis in A Pocketful of Miracles.  That role was soon followed by playing the “bad girl” in State Fair with Bobby Darin and Pat Boone.

But although it was an auspicious beginning, Dr. Peterman- and years of dance lessons- had taught her she could do way better than that.

Her very next movie role in 1963 zoomed her to super stardom.  She played Kim McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie.  (See the video clip that heads this post if you want to know what all the hoopla was about.  I LOVE this.)

The movie premiered at Radio City Music Hall, and it had the highest first-week grosses of any film to date at that venue.  I saw it twice.  (At the Teatro?)  I had already memorized the Broadway cast album, and even though I was deeply disappointed in Janet Leigh’s lousy Rosie and the idiotic plot change involving Albert’s “speedup pill,” Ann-Margret lit up the screen.

She electrified pre-teen me.  And I wasn’t the only one.

Life Magazine made her a cover girl.  Now she was in the big-time.  The sky was the limit.

In 1964 she kissed the sky.

A-M met EP on the MGM soundstage for the epic Viva Las Vegas.  And although she filmed three duets with the King, only one, “The Lady Loves Me” actually made it into the film.  Colonel Tom Parker, that old carnival fraud and mother hen who kept an eagle eye on Elvis, felt that our girl’s presence threatened to over shadow his golden goose.

The Colonel may have been right. Judge for yourselves.  But I think it was the only time in Elvis film history that he met an opponent worthy of his steel.  (Ahem… and in real life, a torrid affair went on- allegedly- between these young supernovas.)

Watch the WHOLE clip.  In full screen preferably.  I’m begging you.

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Wow.  Take that, Sasha Fierce!  That’s the way we did it back in the Sixties.

I can’t top that.  I know when to get out of Dodge.

Viva Ann-Margret.