Ann-Margret is seen here holding a kitten in a promotional photo for her 1964 film Kitten With a Whip.
Ann-Margret has always been fond of cats, as she explained in a 1972 article written by Joyce Haber for the Sarasota Journal:
“Oh, do you like cats?” [Ann-Margret] said excitedly, when I responded to the tiny, mismarked black and white who’d been playing in the living room. “I’ve always loved cats ever since I was a little girl. Five months ago we had nine cats. Now we have five. It’s the coyotes out there.” She indicated the hills outside the window.
This information was repeated in a 1977 article in the Victoria Advocate in which reporter Dick Kleiner described her living room as “bright and airy, done in tones of green and yellow, full of flowers and fluffy pillows and populated with cats, both real and embroidered.” He went on to talk about how her husband Roger had his gadgets and that she had her cats. “She’s down to a manageable five cats now. She used to have so many that Roger and the rest of their friends called her ‘The Crazy Cat Lady of Benedict Canyon.’”
Her love for cats apparently hasn’t diminished over time. A 2001 article about the actress by Paul Farhi for The Washington post stated, “She’ll greet you warmly and talk happily about her six cats and her Maltese.” An article in the March 18, 2001 issue of the Manitowoc Herald-Times, for her debut on stage in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, elaborates:
Home is California; family, of course, is her husband and manager of more than 30 years, Roger Smith, and the animals include six cats and one dog, a Maltese called Missy who thinks she’s a cat. Her long-lasting marriage to Smith, may be, in her own words, “my greatest triumph,” but it’s those felines – Birdie (as in “Bye Bye Birdie”), Ariel, Peachie, Jezebel, Slugger and Mei-Ling – that get her chatting.
“I love it when I talk about cats. So many people are afraid of them for some reason,” she says with wonder, even though it was Jezebel, a long-haired calico, who contributed to her latest fall. Ann-Marget tripped over the animal on Christmas Eve. The result was a broken wrist and she had to play the first few performances of “Whorehouse” with the cast still on.
Ann-Margret is still acting and performing and more than likely she still loves cats! And for that (and many other reasons) we love her!
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