The wild one
All hail Ann-margret! Why the Harleyriding, Elvis-dating Tommy star is still rocking at 82
“I ALWAYS wanted to do everything,” says Annmargret of her long and varied career. “I had a lot of energy and I still do.” She isn’t kidding. At 82, the Swedish-american actress, singer, dancer and stage performer – who first shot to stardom in 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie, followed by a leading role opposite Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas – has just released Born To Be Wild, a forceful set of covers that taps into her reputation as Hollywood’s ageless dynamo. A lifelong biker, the sleeve features a vintage shot of her in silver racing gear, astride a Triumph Tiger. She still rides a Harleydavidson around Los Angeles. “It’s gorgeous – lavender and white with daisies around the letters,” she enthuses. “And it’s fast. I’ve always liked speed. And a little danger!”
Co-produced by LA Guns’ Adam Hamilton, Born To Be Wild features contributions from Pete Townshend, Joe Perry, Steve Cropper, Linda Gail Lewis, Rick Wakeman, Robben Ford, Brian Auger, Slim Jim Phantom and garage rock stalwarts The Fuzztones. “These are all wonderful songs that I’ve wanted to do for some while,” she says. “A couple of them I’ve done in my stage act. I started doing ‘Somebody’s In My Orchard’ a long time ago. And I’m crazy for ‘Teach Me Tonight’.”
A duet with good friend and one-time co-star Pat Boone, “Teach Me Tonight” also brings Annmargret full circle. The song originally appeared on her 1961 debut And Here She Is, whose hit single, “I Just Don’t Understand”, was later covered by The Beatles. The Townshend connection, meanwhile, reaches back to her Oscar-nominated turn on 1975’s Tommy, where she played the hero’s glamorous, emotionally frangible mother, despite being only two years older than Roger Daltrey. “I called Pete Townshend the other day and we had a good time talking and laughing,” she says. “Before we invited him to play guitar on the album, I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him since 1975.”
Ann-margret’s turn in Tommy is particularly memorable for the scene in which her character throws a champagne bottle at her TV set, out of which spurts a tsunami of soap
“Elvis and I felt music the same way”
suds, baked beans and chocolate. “Oh boy, nothing could’ve prepared me for that!” she chuckles. “When we did that scene for the first time, Ken [Russell, director] said: ‘I don’t want you to look up and have horror in your face because of what’s coming down at you.’ So I had to really try not to signal that. I was wearing that silver-knit catsuit and he was shouting: ‘Come toward me! More! More!’ I was just flailing around and couldn’t see anything. Then all of a sudden I saw blood coming from my left hand, which I’d cut on the glass from the television screen. Now I have a scar that reminds me of it every day. But doing the movie was a wonderful experience.”
Born To Be Wild also features a rendition of doo-wop standard “Earth Angel”, featuring Harvey Mandel and The Oak Ridge Boys. Its inclusion begs mention of Elvis, who covered the song in the late ’50s. These days, Annmargret doesn’t care to discuss the romance that blossomed between the pair during the making of Viva Las Vegas, but she does recall their instant connection on set. “I really hadn’t seen him perform before I did the film,” she reveals. “I was so excited. When we started dancing to the music together, we looked at each other and we were moving exactly the same way. I got a kick out of that. He and I felt music the same way.”
Born To Be Wild is out now on Cleopatra Records