Cyd Charisse, 86; dancer starred in movie musicals with Gene Kelly,
Fred Astaire Trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition, she
listed 'Singin' in the Rain' and 'Silk Stockings' among her many
credits.
By Mary Rourke, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
3:34 PM PDT, June 17, 2008
Cyd Charisse, who brought sizzle and sophistication to dance in such
classic movie musicals as "Singin' in the Rain" and "Silk Stockings,"
died today. She was 86.
Charisse died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after
suffering an apparent heart attack Monday, publicist Gene Schwam said.
Charisse captured moviegoers' attention in a quick succession of
films, starting with "Singin' in the Rain" in 1952 in which she
partnered with dancer and actor Gene Kelly in a steamy ballet.
She was strong, lithe and "drop-dead gorgeous to look at," dance/film
historian and author Larry Billman said of Charisse in her
breakthrough performance. She partnered with Kelly again in
"Brigadoon" in 1954 and "It's Always Fair Weather" the following year.
"After years when Hollywood's leading dancers were cute and fluffy,
Cyd took dance to a more sensual realm in the 1950s," Billman said in
a September 2007 interview with The Times.
Charisse also danced with Fred Astaire, the premier dancer of his age,
in major production numbers in the '50s. In "The Band Wagon" (1953),
they danced to the music of "Dancing in the Dark" on a set that looked
like New York City's Central Park. Four years later, Charisse and
Astaire were partners again in "Silk Stockings." Astaire said that
Charisse was "beautiful dynamite" on screen. Charisse's other
starmaker roles of the 1950s included "Deep in My Heart" (1954), in
which she danced a ***y duet with James Mitchell.
Unlike many top female dancers in the era of movie musicals, Charisse
was trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition.
While she occasionally performed solo, "she was at her best when she
was partnered," Billman said. "She had technique, ability, and she
didn't do anything to take away from her partner."
Her glamorous looks fit well with an emerging trend. "In the '50s,
Hollywood was all about ***," Billman said. While actresses Marilyn
Monroe and Sophia Loren dominated their field, "Cyd ruled dance,"
Billman said. "She personified dancing sophistication."
Earlier in her movie career, Charisse's dark hair and eyes led to some
unlikely roles as "ethnic-exotic" characters in B movies such as
"Fiesta" (1947), where she played the Latina fiancee of actor Ricardo
Montalban.
She was cast as Polynesian in "On an Island With You," a song, dance
and swim film starring Esther Williams in 1948.
In interviews, she said that her acting roles were like a vacation
compared with the hard work of dancing, but she was not tempted to
change her priorities. "If I had to give up either acting or dancing,
I'd choose to keep dancing," she said in a December 1952 interview
with the Saturday Evening Post.
She was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1922, in Amarillo, Texas.
Her older brother nicknamed her Sid, a variation on Sis. In Hollywood,
she changed the spelling to Cyd.
She began ballet lessons at age 6, encouraged by her father, Ernest,
after she developed a mild case of polio that left her with a slight
atrophy on her right side.
"I was this tiny, frail little girl, I needed to build up muscle, and
I fell in love with dancing from the first lesson," she said in a 1996
interview with the Calgary Herald.
During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents
enrolled her in ballet cl***** at a school in Hollywood. One of her
teachers was Nico Charisse.
As a teenager, she returned to the school as a full-time student. Not
long afterward, Col. W. de Basil, the director of the Ballet Russe
dance company, visited the school and saw her dance. He invited her to
join his company and she toured with it under the stage names Natacha
Tulaelis and Felia Siderova, according to Billman. Dancers in the
company were required to take Russian-sounding names.
In 1939, while she was in France on tour with the ballet company, she
and Nico Charisse eloped. They had one son, Nico, before their
marriage ended in divorce in 1947. Charisse then married singer and
night club entertainer Tony Martin in 1948. The couple had one son,
Tony.
Martin and her sons survive her, along with two grandchildren.
Martin and Charisse settled in Hollywood soon after their marriage.
One of her earliest movies was "Something to Shout About" (1943), in
which she performed in a ballet. She captured wider attention three
years later in "Ziegfield Follies," when she had a brief featured
moment with the film's star, Fred Astaire. It led to her signing a
seven-year contract with MGM Studios in 1946.
"I never considered going into motion pictures," she said in a 1992
interview with New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff. The offer
of a contract at MGM, home of movie musicals, convinced her to change
her mind.
After a decade in movies in which she was "the only dancer who could
make a pirouette look ***y," according to Kisselgoff, Charisse
expanded her range.
In the '60s, she performed cabaret shows with Martin while she
continued working in Hollywood in films such as "Two Weeks in Another
Town" (1962). She made frequent guest appearances on popular
television series, including "Hawaii Five-O" and "The Love Boat" in
the 1970s and "Murder She Wrote" in the 1980s.
She also worked in theater, performing in "Charlie's Girls" in London
in the 1980s and making her Broadway debut as an aging Russian
ballerina in "Grand Hotel" in 1992.
She was 70 when she first appeared on Broadway and was still faithful
to her time-tested philosophy, she told the New York Times. "If you
worry about taking risks, don't do it," Charisse said.
Services are pending.
|
