Ann-Margret cared for her husband – his cause of death broke her heart

But Ann-Margret was not easily swayed.

“Every other woman I met was falling all over me,” he remembered. “But this innocent, fresh-faced beauty only spoke to me when I spoke to her and the rest of the time ignored me.”

The couple first crossed paths in the 1960s, naturally meeting through their Hollywood careers. However, it wasn’t until 1965 that they began dating seriously.

Some reports suggest that Roger initially invited the Swedish star to one of his performances at a San Francisco club. But he also had another trick up his sleeve.

He knew that Ann-Margret was a passionate motorcycle enthusiast. She loved riding and had several bikes at home, along with an entire wardrobe of motorcycle gear.

”When I first started going out with her, there were a lot of guys hanging around. But they didn’t ride motorcycles. So I figured if I had one, it would help. So I bought one and we went out ridning together. It helped,” he told NEA.

By their third date, Ann-Margret was certain that Roger Smith was the man she had always been searching for.

“I knew he would protect me. I knew that I could depend on him. I sensed it completely,” she told People in 2017.

Tears of sadness
The couple tied the knot in 1967 and their marriage was everything Ann-Margret could dream of. But few knows that their union got off to a bad start. During their wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, in a ”cigarette-smoke-filled room at the Riviera Hotel”, the Bye Bye Birdie star started to cry.

”This is not the way I envisioned my wedding,” Ann-Margret told People and added: ”I think everyone thought I was pregnant because I was crying though the whole thing. But we did it.”