Ann-Margret

Ann-Margret Olsson was a daughter of Anna Regina (nee Aronsson), and Carl Gustav Olsson. She is from Ornskoldsvik. The family moved back to Valsjobyn, Jamtland. She later spoke of Valsjobyn as a tiny town made up of "lumberjacks and farmers up near the Arctic Circle". Ann-Margret, her mother , and her father came to the United States on November 1946. Her father took her to Radio City Music Hall the first day. They were settled in Wilmette (Illinois), just away from Chicago. In 1949, she became an naturalized citizen of the United States. Ann-Margret started dancing at the Marjorie Young School of Dance. She had an unnatural talent right from the beginning and could effortlessly follow the steps. Her parents were supportive of her, and she created all her costumes by hand. Ann-Margret's mother worked as a receptionist at a funeral parlor after her husband sustained a serious injury while working. Ann-Margret was a teen and appeared on Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour and Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. She was a student at New Trier High School located in Winnetka, Illinois and continued her acting career. In 1959, she entered Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She was a part of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta. She did not graduate. As part of the group called the Suttletones, she was a regular at the Mist nightclub in Chicago and then travelled to Las Vegas for a promised night out, but it fell through when the group arrived. They went to Los Angeles, California, and through the agent Georgia Lund, they secured club dates in Newport Beach, California and Reno, Nevada. The group visited the Dunes in Las Vegas where they were also joined by Tony Bennett and Al Hirt. George Burns heard of her performance and asked her to audition for his annual holiday show, in which she and Burns performed a soft shoe routine. Variety reported that George Burns is "a gold mine in Ann Margret... She has a distinctive style that can easily guide her to stardom."