Interview with Ann-Margret (1983) | Interviews

The doorbell rang. Roger himself slipped out of his office, humming a little tune, and opened it. A young man in running shoes stepped inside. "This is Rich," Roger said. "The laser man." Rich was carrying some science-fiction gimmickry under his arm.

"We were the first act in Nevada to incorporate laser effects into our show," Ann-Margret said. "And people think we're crazy because we only use them in one number: You're spending all that money and that's all you're using it? But it's right for one number."

"We have a lot of complicated things in this show," Roger said, sitting on the back of a couch.

"Explain about the click track," Ann-Margret said.

"We have," said Roger, "a section of the show that is so hard to do that I don't know how Ann-Margret does it. She appears onstage, and there are three screens behind her. She's on all three screens. And she does a three-part performance with herself as her own backup. It involves perfectly timed cues, to mesh Ann-Margret with the film.

"So, Marvin Hamlisch and I worked out this stereophonic feedback system in which the music comes in on one channel and a metronome comes in on the other. Of course, the audience doesn't hear the metronome. And then Ann-Margret also has closed-circuit TV so she can see what's going on with the three screens. Then there are all these complicated cues - like at one point a dancer leaps offstage and then leaps onscreen. Well, naturally you want him offstage before he's onscreen. Little timing things like that. Not, to even mention laser beams."

He grinned. "I was asking Rich one day, How do you handle a laser beam? And he said, Very carefully."

Roger and Rich went into Roger's office and shut the door behind their discussion of new laser effects. Ann-Margret sipped her grape juice and said she would give me a notion of her schedule just now.

"I worked until 5 this morning, filming 'Streetcar.' It's the finest role I've ever had, and it's taking the most out of me. I'm not a technical actress, I'm an emotional actress, and if Blanche Dubois feels something, I do. Monday, we finish the scene. Then I go to San Francisco for six nights. Then back here, then to New Orleans for one final day's shooting on 'Streetcar.' Then we take the show to Toronto, Atlantic City, Chicago and St. Louis. Then to Aspen. That's for R & R. I'm keeping pretty busy. But one thing I've learned is that the experiences you go through, the good and the bad, make you stronger."

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