Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s
Ann-Margret was taking a leap into the unknown when she decided, temporarily, to turn her back on Hollywood and revive her fading fortunes – and buttress her bank account – by heading to Italy. By the time she made that decision, Clint Eastwood would not have been deemed to set a sparkling template since his spaghetti westerns were not released in the USA until after she had departed for Italy. She may well have had her head turned by such critically acclaimed fare as the Oscar-nominated Marriage Italian Style (1964) or perhaps the prospect, like Burt Lancaster in The Leopard (1963), of being taken up by critically-acclaimed director.
At one point she had easily been the fastest-rising star in Hollywood, with contracts for movies from rival studios, at one time balancing the demands of around a dozen movies. Had she been born in the previous decade she would have headlined any number of pieces of fluff that attracted box office…