Stories

Ann-Margret Calls Her Love With Elvis ‘Electrifying’—”He Wanted To Marry Me”

Ann-Margret once said that Elvis Presley wanted to marry her as a result of their infamous affair. Elvis was known for chasing flings on the sets of all of his films, but Viva Las Vegas was different. Ann-Margret was different.

Ann-Margret was a match for Elvis with a lot of his friends even telling him, “She’s the female you.” She was the only co-star of his that shared top billing with him on any movie and she was actually the only female co-star invited to his funeral. He even sent her flowers regularly up until his death and Elvis’ father, Vernon, even asked Ann-Margret to represent the Presley family on a 1977 TV special after Elvis’ death.

Ann-Margret says Elvis Presley wanted to marry her

VIVA LAS VEGAS, Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley, 1964. / Everett Collection

“We both felt a current, an electricity that went straight through us. It would become a force we couldn’t control… Little did we know we shared a devil within. We were quiet, polite, careful. But I knew what was going to happen once we got to know each other. Elvis did, too,” Ann-Margret says of their relationship.

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VIVA LAS VEGAS, Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley, 1964 / Everett Collection

By the time of their famed 1964 film, Ann-Margret was already an established singer and dancer. “We experienced music in the same visceral way. Music ignited a fiery pent-up passion inside Elvis and inside me. It was an odd, embarrassing, funny, inspiring, and wonderful sensation. We looked at each other move and saw virtual mirror images. When Elvis thrust his pelvis, mine slammed forward, too. When his shoulder dropped, I was down there with him. When he whirled, I was already on my heel.”

VIVA LAS VEGAS, from left: Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley, 1964. / Everett Collection

It was the first time that no flowers came from Elvis when she opened at the Hilton on August 15th, 1977 for the first time in 10 whole years, that Ann-Margret knew something was wrong. The following day, she had called Graceland and received the news that Elvis has passed away before the news was officially released to the press. It only bears asking, if he had lived, would their relationship have lasted?