A CHANCE TO CELEBRATE

Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, who worked for an electrical company. She came to America at age 6. She studied at Northwestern University and left for Las Vegas to pursue a career as a singer. Ann-Margret was discovered by comedian George Burns and soon afterward landed both a record deal at RCA and a film contract at 20th Century Fox.

In 1961, her single “I Just Don’t Understand” charted in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Her acting debut followed the same year as Bette Davis’ daughter in Frank Capra’s Pocketful of Miracles (1961). She appeared in the musical State Fair (1962)  before her breakthrough role in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie (1963), which was based on the successful Broadway show. With Bye Bye Birdie and 1964’s Viva Las Vegas opposite Elvis Presley, she became a Top 10 Box Office attraction, teen idol and a Golden Globe nominated actress. In 1964 she starred alongside Carol Lynley and Pamela Tiffin in the romantic musical comedy The Pleasure Seekers. Cinecon is thrilled to present the World Premiere of a brand-new restoration of this film in honor of Ann-Margret!

She was marketed as Hollywood’s hottest young star and in the years to come was awarded the infamous nickname “sex kitten.” Her following pictures were sometimes dismissed by critics: Bus Riley’s Back in Town (1965) and The Swinger (1966), sometimes praised: The Cincinnati Kid (1965). She couldn’t escape being typecast because of her stunning good looks.

By the late 1960s, her career stalled, and she turned to Italy for new projects. She soon returned to the United States and, by 1970, she was back in the public image with Hollywood films such as R.P.M. (1970) opposite Anthony Quinn, Las Vegas song-and-dance shows and her own television specials. She finally overcame her image with her Oscar-nominated turn in Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge (1971) and succeeded in changing her persona from sex kitten to respected actress.

A near-fatal accident at a Lake Tahoe show in 1972 only momentarily stopped her career. She was again Oscar-nominated in 1975 for Tommy, the rock opera film of the British rock band The Who. Her career continued with successful films throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. She starred next to Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978) and appeared in pictures with such famous co-stars as Walter Matthau, Gene Hackman, Glenda Jackson, and Roy Scheider.

In 1983, she appeared in a successful television remake of Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire. Another late career highlight for her was Grumpy Old Men (1993) as the object of desire for Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Her most recent role was as Grandma Margret in A Holiday Spectacular for Hallmark. Ann-Margret is the stepmother to three children of her husband, Roger Smith, an actor, who later became her manager. She and Smith were married for 50 years from 1967 until his passing in 2017. Cinecon is proud to pay tribute to this most exceptional woman as part of our annual celebration of the movies.

Mamie Van Doren, at 94, is the last of the original blonde bombshells and the only one of the “Three M’s” (Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield) to have survived, and maintained a long, successful career in films, nightclubs, stage, TV, and recordings.

She was born Joan Olander on Feb. 6, 1931, in Rowena, South Dakota and moved to Los Angeles with her parents in 1942. In 1949, at the age of eighteen, she was named Miss Palm Springs and Miss Eight Ball, where she was discovered by Howard Hughes, who signed her to an RKO contract and put her in such films as His Kind of Woman, Jet Pilot, and Two Tickets to Broadway.

She moved over to Universal in 1953, and the studio changed her name to Mamie Van Doren, for Mamie Eisenhower and the literary Van Dorens.  They also tried to sell her as their answer to Marilyn Monroe.  Her first role at the studio was opposite Tony Curtis in All American. Additional Universal films include Yankee Pasha (with Jeff Chandler), Francis Joins the WACs, Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Second Greatest Sex, Running Wild (with Bill Haley), and Star in the Dust.

It wasn’t until she left Universal, however, that she established her own identity as a rebellious, sexually liberated woman who was also the first to perform rock and roll music in the movies. Now she was the star of her own vehicles, including Untamed Youth (with Eddie Cochran), High School Confidential (with Jerry Lee Lewis), Sex Kittens Go to College (with Conway Twitty and Tuesday Weld), The Beat Generation with Steve Cochran, The Big Operator (with Mickey Rooney), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (with Martin Milner), Born Reckless (with Jeff Chandler), College Confidential (with Steve Allen), Girls Town (with Paul Anka), plus the film noir cult classics Guns, Girls and Gangsters, Vice Raid and The Girl in Black Stockings.  In all, she made seven films for producer Albert Zugsmith and three for director/producer Howard W. Koch. Her best-remembered film is Teacher’s Pet with Clark Gable and Doris Day, and though it was a supporting role, she steals the picture with her smoldering performance of “The Girl Who Invented Rock and Roll.”

The 60’s were a hard time for blonde bombshells.  Marilyn and Jayne both died tragically, and women were burning their bras.  But Mamie managed to persevere in such films as The Navy Vs. the Night Monsters, Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (with her scenes directed by Peter Bogdonovich in his first picture), Other films from that era include The Girl From Buenos Aires, The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina,  The Candidate (with Ted Knight),  That Girl From Boston, The Arizona Kid, You’ve Got to Be Smart, and In the Wild West (with German star Freddy Quinn). Later movies include The Glory Years, The Vegas Connection, Free Ride, and the 2002 film Slackers, in which Jason Schwartzman licks her naked breast. Her numerous TV credits include The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The Real McCoys, The Jack Benny Show, Fantasy Island, Vegas, and Mister Roberts.

Mamie was one of the very first major movie stars to pose for Playboy Magazine in 1964. She was also the very first star to lend her support to the AIDS crisis, performing numerous benefits for AIDS Project Los Angeles, and riding in their car in the 1984 West Hollywood Pride Parade.  She was also named Grand Marshall for the 1987 Pride Parade, in recognition of her contribution.

She released three 12” dance records—“State of Turmoil” (which made the Top 10), “Young Dudes” and “Queen of Pleasure” for Rhino, and played such discos as Probe in Los Angeles,” the Trocadero Transfer in San Francisco, and the notorious Limelight in New York.  More recently, she recorded the album “Still a Troublemaker” in Nashville, and just this past year she released a 45 single with Pink Martini—“I Told You I Love Ya, Now Get Out” and “Ich Liebe Dich.”

Mamie published two books—“Playing the Field” and “China and Me”—and her third memoir will be out later this year from Harper Collins. She is currently filming the documentary “Mamie Confidential!” for director Marc Saltarelli, who helmed last year’s award-winning “Studio One Forever.”