Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Ann-Margret

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“I didn’t want to be just another blond in the movie world, brought out to be slapped into a bathing suit, perched in a cherry tree to be photographed and then sent back to New York.”
— Jan Sterling (1921-2004). Sterling’s best role was as the hard boiled Lorraine in Billy Wildrer’s Ace in the Hole, 1951, in which she delivers one of the greatest lines of dialogue ever written for motion pictures: “I don’t go the church. Kneeling bags my nylons.” In contrast to her movie image as a street-wise femme fatale, Sterling was a refined and educated woman who came from a wealthy Manhattan family. She attended posh private schools, and traveled widely in South America, London and Paris.

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Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Suddenly, the platform tipped, wobbled, bounced, and flipped upside down. All I remember is the start of the fall and seeing the floor coming toward me. Whatever else I know of the incident is what people have told me. Unconscious, I was sprawled out under the fabric of my yellow chiffon dress, lying face down, crumpled and broken. A pool of blood formed under my head and flowed onto the stage.” —Ann-Margret, My Story, 1994. On September 10th, 1972 while performing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Ann-Margret plummeted 22 feet from a raised platform to the stage below, breaking her left arm and completely shattering the left side of her face (her cheek, jaw, and brow bones were in little tiny pieces). Her devoted husband Roger Smith stole an airplane in Los Angles, flew to Lake Tahoe, and transported an unconscious Ann back to L.A. where she was treated by doctors. After extensive reconstructive surgery which required fusing the bones on the left side of her face back together and wiring her jaw shut, Ann posed for this photo in her bedroom reading the get well wishes she received from friends and fans. Through sheer force of will, Ann returned to the stage ten weeks later. Her beloved father was dying of cancer, and she wanted him to know she was okay.
“Suddenly, the platform tipped, wobbled, bounced, and flipped upside down. All I remember is the start of the fall and seeing the floor coming toward me. Whatever else I know of the incident is what people have told me. Unconscious, I was sprawled out under the fabric of my yellow chiffon dress, lying face down, crumpled and broken. A pool of blood formed under my head and flowed onto the stage.” —Ann-Margret, My Story, 1994.
On September 10th, 1972 while performing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Ann-Margret fell 22 feet from a raised platform to the stage below. She broke her left arm and shattered the left side of her face. Her cheek, jaw, and brow bones were fractured into little pieces. Her husband, Roger Smith, flew from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe, and transported an unconscious Ann back to Los Angles. After extensive reconstructive surgery which required fusing the bones on the left side of her face and wiring her jaw shut, Ann posed for this photo in her bedroom reading the mail she received from friends and fans. A true professional, Ann-Margret returned to the stage ten weeks later.

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Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s: Bye Bye Birdie

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Ann-Margret performs the title song, Bye Bye Birdie.
Ann-Margret performs the title song, Bye Bye Birdie.

We continue our survey of the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1960s.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1950s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s, click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1930s click here.

For the Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1920s click here.

8. Bye Bye Birdie, 1963

From the opening shot, as Ann-Margret (b. Ann-Margret Olsson) bops, bounces, and belts out the title song — on a treadmill, no less — this film belongs to the twenty-one-year-old Swedish-born beauty.

Bye Bye Birdie (originally a stage hit) is based on the national hysteria that hit when Elvis Presley was drafted into the army in 1957. But the film is also a commentary on the emerging youth culture that found its voice in rock and roll, whose deliciously wicked bad boys displaced the clean-cut romantic crooners who had dominated radio and film since the 1920s.

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