Hollywood icon Ann-Margret recently suffered a nasty fall, breaking her elbow as she nears her 85th birthday.
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“I fell the other day, and so now my right elbow is broken,” the actress, who celebrates her next birthday on April 28, revealed to Parade.
The Tommy legend told the outlet she fell at home, before adding, “That’s okay … I have fallen so many times. I don’t intend to, but I do! What can I say?”
The fall forced the Bye Bye Birdie star to cancel an autograph signing while she healed. But fans shouldn’t fret. When asked if she’s on the mend, the spirited actress replied, “Yes, I am. I sure am!”
Of course, fans will recall that this isn’t the first time the star has taken a serious tumble. In 1972, she fell from a 22-foot platform while performing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The incident left her with a collapsed face, a broken jaw, and a broken left arm. “The doctors feared I’d never dance again—if I survived,” she wrote in her 1994 autobiography, My Story.
But just a few months later, Ann-Margret was back on stage, proving that you can’t keep a good woman down.
“I have always learned from my parents that you just get up,” she explained to Parade. “You just start all over again.” The veteran actress then started singing “Pick Yourself Up” by Jerome Kern to the outlet. “Nothing’s impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, I dust myself off, and I start all over again!”
Ann-Margret on Her Personal Trainer: ‘This Man Keeps Me Going’
Her healthy and active lifestyle might be the secret to her resilience. Ann-Margret stays in shape with the help of a personal trainer. “I have a gentleman that comes Tuesdays, Thursdays, and sometimes Fridays,” she reveals. “I’m busy. [I do] all sorts of exercises.” And a broken elbow can’t stop her; it just means leg day comes more often. “Now I’m just doing [exercise] things with my legs.”
Meanwhile, the reason Ann-Margret uses a personal trainer is hilariously relatable.
“If I don’t do that, I’ll probably start saying, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ve got a cold. I’ve got this, I’ve got that.’ But this man keeps me going,” she admitted.