Cyd Charise

Cyd Charisse knew a real dance of names, never better said, throughout her life. She was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, USA on March 8, 1921 (or 1922, according to other sources). Legend has it that her brother, when calling her “sister”, sister, had difficulties pronouncing the aforementioned word, which from the abbreviated “sis”, became “sid”, which in the future would give rise to her artistic given name. definitive, “Cyd”. But by then she still had a long way to go, with dance lessons as a child, studies at a professional school in California, and joining a traveling group, the Monte Carlo Russian Ballet. She there she exhibited her classical training in Russian dance under the nickname of Felia Sidorova. On tour in Europe she met her first husband, also a dancer, Nico Charisse.

It was in the early 40s when scouts from Hollywood studios set their sights on the future actress. She would appear uncredited as a dancer in a handful of titles, such as Mission to Moscow . While in Something to Shout About (1943), she was listed under the name Lily Norwood. In Ziegfeld Follies , from 1946, already under contract with the quintessential musical studio, Metro, she danced in the opening sequence with Fred Astaire . Already in this film the producer Arthur Freed established with his actress the definitive artistic name of her, Cyd Charisse. She finished the dance of the words of the names, and she began in earnest the dance of a brilliant career. She came to titles with “mermaid” Esther Williams (On an Island with You ), or child star Margaret O’Brien ( The Unfinished Dance ). And she even had time to intervene in a crime story, Worlds Opposites (1949), starring Barbara Stanwyck .

There was, of course, a before and after Singing in the Rain (1952). The takeoff of the actress had coincided with her divorce, an affair with the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes and her subsequent wedding to Tony Martin , with whom she had met in Until the Clouds Roll Away . She had a son, Tony Jr., with him in 1950, and that period was an “impasse” in her career, to then shoot off like a rocket with that classic of Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly classics.. Cyd only had one musical number in the film, “Broadway Melody Ballet”, in which she, with the air of a vampire, highlighted by her beautiful, straight black hair and her endless legs, was seductive to Kelly with the actor’s hat held up by the tip of the foot The actress had to learn to smoke for the occasion, to play with her long cigarette holder. It is curious to know that someone who starred in such a daring moment considered herself an introvert, in addition to ensuring that she never considered herself a star.

His next musical break, Broadway Melodies 1955 (1953), marked his first leading role, under the baton of Vincente Minnelli , and co-starring Fred Astaire, who gave life to a showbiz man on the decline, something that to him it had happened to him in part. In a curious game of real life-fiction, in both cases his career was revived. Numbers like “The Girl Hunt Ballet” shone in the film, with the actress again as a vampire, and the even more prodigious and lyrical “Dancing in the Dark”, at night in a park, extremely elegantly executed. Jokes were also made about her and Astaire’s height, as was the case in real life, since she was 1.71 meters tall, almost the same as him. Both actors would repeat in The beauty of Moscow(1957), a musical remake of Ninotchka , with Cyd as a Russian who discovers the attractions of the Western world. But before the actress had made with Minnelli and Kelly Brigadoon (1954), a magical musical, where Kelly made a foray into a ghostly Scottish city that appears every 100 years, falling in love with a local, of course Charisse. Again with Kelly and Donen she would make It’s Always Fine (1955). When Charisse was once asked who she preferred as a dancer, Astaire or Kelly, she intelligently replied: “It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Both are delicious.”

The beauty of Moscow was his last great musical. He would still make a title of interest, such as Chicago, the 30s (1958), a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray , together with Robert Taylor . And he worked with Marilyn Monroe in the unfinished Something’s Got to Give (1962). But we would no longer see that unique way of moving on the screen, “beautiful dynamite”, as Fred Astaire described it in his memoirs. In any case, Charisse’s tenacity, even to appear in a television episode of series like Murder has been written or Frasier, or making her Broadway debut in 1992 with a version of “Gran Hotel” as an aging dancer, proves irrefutably how she loved her profession. She was not stopped by problems such as arthritis, which she spoke about at length in 2000 on Larry King’s television show, along with other artists who suffered from it such as James Coburn or Debbie Reynolds .