Cyd Charisse (March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008)
was an American actress and dancer.
After recovering from
polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focused on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with
Fred Astaire and
Gene Kelly; her films include
Singin' in the Rain (1952),
The Band Wagon (1953) and
Silk Stockings (1957). She stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s, but continued acting in film and television, and in 1992 made her
Broadway debut.
In her later years, she discussed the history of the Hollywood musical in documentaries, and participated in
That's Entertainment! III in 1994. She was awarded the
National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006.
Early life
Charisse was born as
Tula Ellice Finklea in
Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (
née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler.
Her nickname "Sid" was taken from a sibling trying to say "Sis".
(It was later spelled "Cyd" at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied
ballet in
Los Angeles with
Adolph Bolm and
Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as "Felia Siderova" and, later, "Maria Istomina".
During a European tour, she met up again with Nico Charisse, a handsome young dancer she had studied with for a time in Los Angeles. They married in
Paris in 1939. They had a son, Nicky, born in 1942.
Career
The outbreak of
World War II led to the break-up of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles,
David Lichine offered her a dancing role in
Gregory Ratoff's
Something to Shout About. This brought her to the attention of choreographer
Robert Alton — who had also discovered
Gene Kelly — and soon she joined the
Freed Unit at
MGM, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer.
Charisse was principally celebrated for her on-screen pairings with
Fred Astaire and
Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in
Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as lead female role in
The Band Wagon (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed "Dancing in the Dark" and "Girl Hunt Ballet" routines. Another early role cast her opposite
Judy Garland in the 1946 film
The Harvey Girls.
As
Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer,
Gene Kelly chose Charisse to partner him in the celebrated "Broadway Melody" ballet finale from
Singin' in the Rain (1952), and she co-starred with Kelly in 1954's Scottish-themed musical film
Brigadoon. She again took the lead female role alongside Kelly in his penultimate MGM musical
It's Always Fair Weather (1956).
In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of
Silk Stockings, a musical remake of 1939's
Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over
Greta Garbo's role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, calling her "beautiful dynamite" and writing: "That Cyd! When you've danced with her you stay danced with."
In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: "As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the more inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with
Hermes Pan's help, creates fabulous numbers — for himself and his partner. But Kelly can create an entire number for somebody else ... I think, however, that Astaire's coordination is better than Kelly's ... his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, is the stronger of the two. When he lifts you, he lifts you! ... To sum it up, I'd say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on screen. But it's like comparing apples and oranges. They're both delicious."
After the decline of the Hollywood musical in the late 1950s, Charisse retired from dancing but continued to appear in film and TV productions from the 1960s through the 1990s. She had a supporting role in
Something's Got to Give (1962), the last, unfinished film of
Marilyn Monroe. She made cameo appearances in
Blue Mercedes's "I Want to Be Your Property" (1987) and
Janet Jackson's "
Alright" (1990) music videos.
Her last film appearance was in 1994 in
That's Entertainment! III as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.
Personal life
Charisse was married to singer
Tony Martin from 1948 until her death. The marriage lasted 60 years. Cyd's first husband, whose surname she kept, was Nico Charisse (March 1906 – April 1970);
they were married from 1939 to 1947.
She had two sons, Nico "Nicky" Charisse from her first marriage, and Tony Martin, Jr. (1950-2011), from her second.
One of her daughters-in-law is
Liv Lindeland,
who was
Playboy magazine's
Playmate of the Year for 1972. A niece of hers by marriage is actress
Nana Visitor.
Charisse wrote a joint biography with Martin (and Dick Kleiner) entitled
The Two of Us (1976). She was featured in the 2001
Guinness Book of World Records under "Most Valuable Legs", since a $5 million insurance policy was reportedly accepted on her legs in 1952. MGM was reputed to have insured her legs for a million dollars each, but Charisse later revealed that that had been an invention of the MGM publicity machine.
Her daughter-in-law, Sheila Charisse, was a victim of the crash of
American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979.
[
In 1990, following similar moves by MGM colleagues
Debbie Reynolds and
Angela Lansbury, Charisse produced the exercise video
Easy Energy Shape Up, targeted for active senior citizens.
Later years and death
In her eighties, Charisse made occasional public appearances and appeared frequently in documentaries spotlighting the
golden age of Hollywood. She made her Broadway debut in 1992 in the musical version of
Grand Hotel as the aging
ballerina, Elizaveta Grushinskaya.
Charisse was admitted to
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles, California on June 16, 2008 after suffering an apparent
heart attack. She died the following day at age 86.
After her death, she was buried on June 22, 2008 at
Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a
Jewish cemetery in
Culver City, California, following a
Christian ceremony presided over by Dr. Gary Allan Dickey, Senior Pastor of The United Methodist Church in
Westlake Village.
Honors
Accepting the National Medal of Arts and Humanities Award in 2006, photo by Paul Morse
On November 9, 2006, in a private
White House ceremony, President
George W. Bush presented Cyd Charisse with the
National Medal of the Arts and Humanities, the highest official U.S. honor available in the arts.
Tributes
In her collection "Tauzia 1945" fashion designer
Marcela Calvet pays tribute to her by naming an exotic handbag after Cyd Charisse.
Filmography
Features:
Something to Shout About (1943)
Mission to Moscow (1943)
Thousands Cheer (1943)
Ziegfeld Follies (1945)
The Harvey Girls (1946)
Three Wise Fools (1946)
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
Fiesta (1947)
The Unfinished Dance (1947)
On an Island with You (1948)
The Kissing Bandit (1948)
Words and Music (1948)
East Side, West Side (1949)
Tension (1950)
Mark of the Renegade (1951)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
The Wild North (1952)
Sombrero (1953)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Easy to Love (1953) (Cameo)
Brigadoon (1954)
Deep in My Heart (1954)
It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)
Silk Stockings (1957)
Twilight for the Gods (1958)
Party Girl (1958)
Black Tights (1960)
Five Golden Hours (1961)
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962)
Something's Got To Give (1962), unfinished
Assassination in Rome (1965)
The Silencers (1966)
Maroc 7 (1967)
Film Portrait (1973) (documentary)
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
Warlords of Atlantis (1978)
Private Screening (1989)
That's Entertainment! III (1994)
Short subjects:
Rhumba Serenade (1941)
Poeme (1941)
I Knew It Would Be This Way (1941)
Did Anyone Call? (1941)
Magic of Magnolias (1942)
This Love of Mine (1942)
1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955)
Music videos
"I Want to Be Your Property" by Blue Mercedes (1988)
"Alright" by Janet Jackson (1990)
