Elvis and Ann-Margret: The Love Story That Never Became a Marriage

Watch Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret dance in Viva Las Vegas, and one question feels impossible to avoid: How did two people who seemed so right together end up marrying someone else?

They met while filming the movie in 1963. Elvis was already the King of Rock ’n’ Roll; Ann-Margret was a rising star whose energy matched his own. On screen, they traded playful glances and moved together with an ease that made every scene feel alive. Away from the cameras, their connection became a romance.

For years, fans wondered whether they might have married. Ann-Margret later shared something remarkable in her memoir, My Story: they had talked about it. For anyone who has watched them together, that detail changes the film. The future audiences imagined was, for a time, something the two of them had considered as well.

But there was another person in Elvis’s life. He was already involved with Priscilla Beaulieu, and Ann-Margret understood that he had commitments he could not simply set aside. Whatever Elvis felt, a conversation about marriage was not the same as a decision to build a life together. Their story reached the point where feelings alone could no longer answer what came next.

That is the part a movie cannot show. The camera catches a look across a room or the thrill of a dance. It cannot capture every promise made before two people meet, or the weight of choosing one future over another. Perhaps that is why their story still stirs such strong feelings: viewers can see the connection, even though they know how it ends.

In 1967, Elvis married Priscilla. That same year, Ann-Margret married actor Roger Smith. She and Roger remained married for 50 years, until his death in 2017. Her relationship with Elvis was a meaningful chapter, but it was only one chapter in a life filled with work, love and lasting devotion.

Still, return to Viva Las Vegas and the emotion is there. Elvis grins; Ann-Margret answers with a glance of her own. Then the music begins, and for a few minutes it is easy to forget everything that followed. They are young, talented and entirely caught up in the moment. That is what the film preserved—and what makes watching it now feel a little bittersweet.

Elvis never left behind a definitive public explanation of why he did not marry Ann-Margret. Her account gives us something more human than a tidy answer: they cared for each other and spoke about marriage, but their lives took different paths.

When you watch them together, what stays with you most: the joy they shared on screen, or the future they never had?