Ann-Margret says she has been asked to do Dancing with the Stars through the years, but the timing never lined up. The 84-year-old performer, who turns 85 on April 28, said she loves watching the show and still understands the nerves that come with stepping into the spotlight.
“I love watching that, yeah,” she said, adding that she knows the feeling of being ready to perform and thinking, “help!” She said the idea of joining the ballroom contest has come up over the years, but “always, it’s been [bad] timing,” and she does not know whether she would take part now. For the moment, she said, “I really am enjoying my time off.”
The answer carries more weight because Ann-Margret is not just a fan of dance competition television; she built a six-decade Hollywood career on it. She danced in State Fair in 1962, Bye Bye Birdie in 1963 and Viva Las Vegas in 1964, then delivered a performance in The Who’s movie version of Tommy in 1975. She also appeared on the 1980 ABC special Ann-Margret: Hollywood Movie Girls.
Her comments come as she recovers from a fall at her home that broke her right elbow. She said she is doing great, recovering well and had to cancel an autograph-signing appearance because of the injury. “I fell the other day and so now my right elbow is broken,” she said. “That’s okay. I’ve done it many times. I just happen to do that all the time. I have fallen so many times. I don’t intend to, but I do! What can I say?”
That injury adds a practical edge to a question that has followed her for years: whether one of Hollywood’s best-known dancers would ever try the ballroom show herself. Ann-Margret said she missed her late husband of 50 years, Roger Smith, but also said she is happy to be off the road for now. She praised former pros such as Derek Hough and Mark Ballas, saying, “Oh, my goodness, they didn’t get on the show if they weren’t great!”
If the answer to the long-running question is simple, the history around it is not. Cloris Leachman remains the oldest star ever to appear on Dancing with the Stars at 82 in season 7 in 2008, with Buzz Aldrin next at 80 in season 10 in 2010. Ann-Margret, who will also receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Chita Rivera Awards on May 18 at the NYU Skirball Center, has already had the kind of career that makes a ballroom slot feel almost inevitable. This time, though, she made clear the reason she never did it was not reluctance. It was bad timing.