AP
June 18, 2008
Cyd Charisse, the long-legged Texas beauty who danced with the Ballet Russe as a teenager and starred in MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, died yesterday at 86.
Charisse was admitted to an LA hospital Monday after an apparent heart attack, said her publicist, Gene Schwam.
She appeared in dramatic films, but her fame came from the Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.
Classically trained, she could dance anything, from a pas de deux in 1946's "Ziegfeld Follies" to the lowdown Mickey Spillane satire of 1956's "The Band Wagon" (with Astaire).
She also forged a popular song-and-dance partnership on TV and in nightclub appearances with her husband, singer Tony Martin.
Her height was 5 feet 6 inches, but in high heels and stockings, she seemed serenely tall, and she moved with extraordinary grace. Her flawless looks and jet-black hair contributed to an aura of perfection that Astaire once described as "beautiful dynamite."
The 1952 classic "Singin' in the Rain" marked a breakthrough.
When the producer was dissatisfied with another dancer who had been cast, Charisse inherited the role and danced with Kelly in the "Broadway Melody" number that climaxed the movie.
