Often playing sultry and seductive in her far-flung career, the incomparable Ann-Margret’s first attempt to break away from her initial sugar-pie image resulted in her appearing in the camp classic Kitten with a Whip. There, as the hotly homicidal Jody, she terrorized John Forsythe’s staid weekending businessman with pout worthy aplomb. Ridiculed at the time, the film eventually inspired many bad ass female musicians and young gay men who vowed, much like this B-Movie’s title character, to not take life’s homogenized shit lightly. Going down in a blaze of glory, Jody, despite her maniacal fixations, was a heroine to many of society’s lost and lonely & seemingly set the framework for the vengeful biker chicks in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! KIll!, another femme-strong cult classic.
Going forward though, this career gal’s man-eating characters were often imbued with a comic voluptuousness, Jody’s razor-sharp anger was not to be found in such schemers as Laurel in Bus Riley’s Back in Town, Jezebel Desire in The Cheap Detective or Charming Jones in The Villain. But the experience of playing those humorous variations on evilness, did seemingly allow her to add texture and depth to a variety of her performances, resulting in a part in the early ’90s that contained truly effective strokes of gray.
In Our Sons, one of several early television films taking on the AIDS crisis. this layered pro assumed the role of Luanne Barnes, a small-town mother who is, vehemently (at first), unaccepting of her dying son’s homosexuality. Course and nasty, Luanne eventually succumbs to her instinctual maternal nature and embraces her ailing child before he succumbs to the darkness. Acting most directly against fellow legend Julie Andrews, as a fellow mother, and Željko Ivanek, who effectively played her terminal offspring, this is a scorched earth performance. While Luanne is presented as the ultimate villain, having disowned her son due to his sexuality, she is also as achingly human, a masterful undertaking for A-M and a far, far cry from Kitten with a Whip’s steely yet fun one dimensionality.
Horror Hall of Fame:
While she does make an appearance in 2006’s mind-twisting (little seen) Memories, featuring the dashing Billy Zane, A-M’s most popular genre undertaking is 1978’s Magic. This dark tale of puppetry and madness gave her a chance to play sweetly passionate Peggy Ann Snow opposite future Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins.
Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!
Big Gay Horror Fan 