US:CYD CHARISSE, an actress and dancer whose mile-long legs made her a memorable partner with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire in several top musicals of the 1950s, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after an apparent heart attack. She was 86.
Astaire called Charisse "beautiful dynamite," adding: "When you've danced with her, you stay danced with." Their elegant duet of Dancing in the Dark in The Band Wagon (1953) was a peerless display of romance set to music.
Her breakthrough had occurred a year earlier in Singin' in the Rain (1952) opposite Kelly. She was not the star of the movie and in fact had no dialogue.
However she was a bewitching presence in the Broadway Melody finale, playing both a dangerously leggy gun moll in a green flapper dress and the chaste dancer in a white tutu whose long scarf floats in the air with the aid of a wind machine.
The performance elevated the Texas beauty to the front rank of movie musical performers and showcased her ability to portray sizzling seduction and cold, elusive elegance.
Charisse became Kelly's co-star in Brigadoon (1954) and It's Always Fair Weather (1955) and played a Russian efficiency expert opposite Astaire in Silk Stockings (1957), a charmless remake of Ninotchka with Charisse in the Greta Garbo role.
At 5ft 6in - taller in heels - she was the picture of balletic grace, whether her partner was the athletic Kelly or the aristocratic Astaire. Kelly, she told the New York Times, "was more of a physical dancer. He pulled you around and was strong enough to do lifts."
Astaire, she said, "moved like glass. Physically, it was easy to dance with him".
The admiration was mutual. "She wasn't a tap dancer, she's just beautiful, trained, very strong in whatever we did," Astaire said in a 1983 interview.
She was born Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, on March 8th, 1922.The family moved to Hollywood, where, at 18, she married her ballet instructor, Nico Charisse. The marriage ended in divorce.
She won an audition with the Ballet Russe, touring the capitals of Europe before using a ballet connection to meet Hollywood movie director Gregory Ratoff. Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer signed her to a seven-year contract.
She went through a number of stage and screen names before settling on Cyd Charisse. Her brother, unable to pronounce "Sis" as a youngster, had called her Sid; Freed suggested adopting the more elegant Cyd.
She had supporting roles in several major musicals, including The Harvey Girls and Till the Clouds Roll By, both with Judy Garland. MGM attempted to broaden her range, and her first star billing came in a low-budget drama, Tension (1949), with Richard Basehart.
Silk Stockings was her last movie dancing role, at a time when musicals were going out of style. She remained one of MGM's last contract performers.
She is survived by her husband of 60 years, who continues to perform at 95; a son from her first marriage, Nicky Charisse, and a son from her second marriage, Tony Martin jnr; and two grandchildren. - ( Los Angeles Times/Washington Post service)