ANN-MARGRET

ANN-MARGRET
The female Elvis, and The Who's baked-beans girl. Tasty!
WORDS: SLEAZEGRINDER

The female Elvis? What was all about?
Although the reasons why seem sort of hazy at this point,
it's true that enduring 60s sex kitten Ann-Margret was often referred to as `the female Elvis'. She did, after all, appear with him in seminal rock'n'roll movie Viva Las Vegas. She also had her own recording career, which, like Elvis, included several gospel records. However, unlike Ann-Margret, Elvis didn't live long enough to go through a harrowing late-70s disco phase.

Speaking of harrowing, didn't she almost die on stage once?
True. During a performance at the Sahara Hotel in Lake Tahoe in September 1972, the stage collapsed and Ann plummeted 22 feet to the ground. Among other injuries, she sustained a broken jaw and several smashed bones in her face. Rather heroically, her husband, Route 66 star Roger Smith, stole a plane and flew her to the hospital. Apparently an ambulance was out of the question. Amazingly, she made a full recovery and was back on the road within a year.

Classic Rock moment?
What with the Elvis movie and the persistent rumours about their on-set romance, her appearances as howling stone-age sex kitten Ann-Margrock in The Flintstones, and her positively punk-rock performance as a snarly reform schoolgirl in 1964's classic juvenile delinquent flick Kitten With A Whip, well, you can take your pick. But for our money, Ann's most rock'n'roll moment has to be her wild baked-beans freakout in The Who's psychedelic rock opera Tommy - far out, man.

Best place to see her these days?
Ann-Margret is still an active performer who frequently appears in film and on television, but the best place to catch her is on tour, where she still belts out her saucy hits dressed in leather and knee-high boots. Occasionally she even rolls on to the stage in a customised motorcycle, Rob Halford-style.

Oh yeah, one more thing... Can I see her naked anywhere?
Currently, there is no topless section of her live show, but she did perform a few skintastic sex scenes in films over the years, including 1971's racy relationship drama Carnal Knowledge and, if you don't mind a little stone-cold terror with your titillation, 1978's ventriloquist dummy horrorshow Magic. Sadly, the dummy was not involved in her bedroom scene.