세기의 사랑이 될뻔한 Elvis Presley와 Ann Margret의 Love Affair.
1964년 MGM의 영화 Viva Las Vegas에서 파트너로 만나서 한동안 데이트하는 사이로 발전.
Elvis Presley도 Ann Margret을 Ann Margret도 Elvis Presley를 좋아했고 Ann Margret이 늦은 밤 Elvis Presley 집으로 들어가는 게 목격되기도 했다.
그러나 둘 사이는 이루어지지 않으려는지 1967년 Elvis Presley가 결혼을 발표. 그리고 뒤이어 Ann Margret도 결혼을 발표하고 결혼한다. 그 뒤로도 둘은 친한 친구로 남았다.
Ann Margret은 1967년 결혼한 Roger Smith가 2017년 죽을 때까지 친 자식은 낳지않은 채 로저와 전처 사이의 세 아이들을 기르고 살았다는 사실 하나만 보더라도 이혼과 재혼이 일상화된 서양세계 연예인 사이에서 흔하지 않은 현모양처의 모습으로 인식된다.
만약 Elvis Presley가 Priscilla와 결혼하지 않고 Ann Margret과 결혼했다면 Elvis Presley에게나 Ann Margret에게 다른 방향으로 삼이 전개되었으리라....가정일 뿐이고 헛된 일이기는 하나...Ann Margret 의 미모 못지않게 돋보이는 성정이라고 할 수있겠다.
Rock'n roll의 황제인 Elvis Presley에 반해 가수로서 Ann Margret은 Slowly, What am I supposed to do 그리고 Last Date가 대중적 인기를 얻은 곡이다./
<< As they worked together, Ann-Margret says they discovered many things they had in common. In addition to the music, they shared a passion for motorcycles, a love of family, a desire for privacy, a devotion to God, and late night talks.
Early during filming, Elvis asked her to go out with him and the guys to see a show in Las Vegas. "It was an innocent, friendly date,"
she remembered. "I was used to having my parents accompany me on dates, so Elvis's entourage wasn't a problem. His guys always treated me wonderfully.
In return, Elvis's buddies always felt comfortable when she was around. "She made his life a little easier because she understood him and didn't make any demands on him," Elvis's cousin Billy Smith recalled. "She even understood his need for us. Priscilla never really understood that.
Marty Lacker added, "Ann genuinely liked people, and she liked every one of us. She wasn't intimidated or threatened by us. I think she also respected us. We used to have a lot of fun with her. She had a terrific sense of humor. We called her 'Rusty' because that was her name in the movie and because of her red hair
As Elvis became more comfortable with Ann-Margret, however, they began to spend more time alone. "I knew I'd crossed into a certain uncharted territory when Elvis asked to be alone with me, but later the frequency with which it happened made me happy. It meant Elvis truly trusted me."
During their private time together, Elvis opened up to her, perhaps more than he ever had with any other person in his life. She felt she came to know his heart intimately:
Like everyone else, Elvis had dreams and desires, hopes and hurts, wants and weaknesses. He didn't reveal this vulnerable side until everyone had disappeared, until those private moments when we were alone, after darkness had blanketed the city and we'd parked somewhere up in the hills and could look down upon the sprawl of L.A. or up at the stars."
The only threat to their relationship during the Viva Las Vegas shoot was their egos. Ann-Margret admitted she had one, and no one would deny Elvis did as well. A case in point is the favoritism director George Sidney allegedly gave Ann-Margret during filming.
Elvis cronies Red West, Lamar Fike, Joe Esposito, and Sonny West have all accused Sidney of giving Ann-Margret favorable camera angles at Elvis's expense.
According to Red West, after viewing the daily rushes, Elvis would "complain bitterly to us that the sonofabitch was trying to cut him out of the picture." Reportedly, Elvis's complaints were passed on to Colonel Parker, who took Sidney to task. According to Presley biographer Peter Guralnick, the Colonel confronted the producers, reminding them that this was an "Elvis Presley picture."
He didn't buy MGM's argument that featuring Ann-Margret would draw a wider audience to the film. Guralnick even reported that Parker used his power to pull from the film two of the three duets recorded by the two stars.
A viewing of the final edit of Viva Las Vegas reveals that Elvis clearly received the most exposure musically. He had six solo numbers to only two for Ann-Margret.
Her strength as a dancer was featured, naturally, but overall Viva Las Vegas comes across as an Elvis Presley film with Ann-Margret as a strong leading lady.
None of the pro-Presley accusers blamed Ann-Margret for the director's perceived favoritism of her, and she didn't mention the controversy in her book.
If Elvis let some professional jealousy show in the camera angle controversy, it didn't spill over into his personal relationship with Ann-Margret. By all accounts, that developed quickly into full-blown love affair.
"Elvis's affair with Ann-Margret was not just an affair," declared Lamar Fike. "He was really in love with her. It got hot and heavy." Marty Lacker added, "Neither one of them was married, and they really cared a lot about each other..... and Priscilla was back at Graceland."
For her part, in her book Ann-Margret avoided passionate details of her relationship with Elvis, instead focusing on the motorcycle rides and other adventures they shared as close friends.
Still, it's apparent their intimate relationship continued long after filming on Viva Las Vegas had been concluded. In his book, Jerry Schilling reported seeing Ann-Margret enter Elvis's California home late at night in the fall of 1964 with her own key and make her way up to Elvis's bedroom.
Marty Lacker claims, "She used to write him letters and sign them 'Bunny' or 'Thumper. And she'd call Graceland and use the same code." And Ann-Margret admitted in her book that, "Elvis knew I loved pink and had commissioned a round, pink bed in a moment of tenderness"
Inevitably, though, at least to Ann-Margret it seemed, their love affair had to end. She explained in her autobiography There were other factors in Elvis's life that forced him apart from me, and I understood them.
Elvis had always been honest with me, but still it was a confusing situation. We continued to see each other periodically, until we had dated for almost a year. Then everything halted. We knew the relationship had to end, that Elvis had to fulfill his commitment.
That commitment was marrying Priscilla in Las Vegas on May 1, 1967. Ann-Margret made a similar commitment a week later, when she married actor Roger Smith in the same city. For the remaining 10 years of Elvis's life, he and Ann-Margret remained good and loyal friends.
When she made her first appearance on the Las Vegas stage in June 1967, Elvis sent her a guitar-shaped floral arrangement. He continued the practice for all of her Las Vegas openings for the rest of his life. When Elvis opened at the International Hotel on July 31, 1969.
Ann-Margret was in the audience, according to Lamar Fike. Throughout the seventies, both would attend the other's Las Vegas shows when possible and visit with each other afterwards.
In the seventies, both would struggle with drug dependencies. While Elvis abused prescription medications, Ann-Margret fought alcohol addiction.
"I reached a point where my days and nights blended into one continuous, foggy state of inebriation," she explained. " I'd drink a fifth of scotch, pass out, wake up, drink some more, and pass out again. I suffered periods that I couldn't remember."
Ann-Margret overcame her addiction; Elvis did not. In early 1977 she heard rumors about Elvis's poor health.
When Joe Esposito came to her show at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, she asked him how Elvis was doing. "Don't worry," he told her. "Everything's fine. There're a few problems, but we're taking care of them."
When she opened at the Hilton on August 15, 1977, for the first time in 10 years, there was no flower arrangement or telegram from Elvis. The next morning a phone call from Graceland brought the devastating news. Joe Esposito explained it was going to be a madhouse in Memphis for the funeral and advised her not to come.
"We're coming," she told him. When she arrived at Graceland, she and Vernon embraced. "There was so much to say, to recount," she recalled, "but instead, we cried." Vernon said softly, "He was so proud of you."
Three months later Elvis's father and Colonel Parker asked her to host a two-hour Elvis NBC tribute, Memories of Elvis. She described it as one of the most "difficult, wrenching jobs" she had ever undertaken.
In early 1979, on hearing that Vernon Presley was seriously ill, Ann-Margret flew to Memphis to visit him. "We had a good visit, laughing and crying and trading stories," she recalled. "He told me how much he missed his son, and I said that I missed him, too."
To comfort him, she occasionally called Vernon during the months leading up to his death on June 26, 1979.
Marty Lacker, one of Elvis's best men at his wedding, once wrote, "If Elvis had ended up with Thumper, this whole story might have wound up differently."
Could Ann-Margret have saved Elvis from himself when no one else could?
It's a moot question. Even at the peak of their love affair, both of them knew it could never last.>>
