Cyd Charisse (born Tula Ellice Finklea; March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American dancer and actress.
After recovering from polio as a child and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually featured her abilities as a dancer, and she was often paired with Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. Her films included Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), Brigadoon (1954), and Silk Stockings (1957). She stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s but continued acting in film and television, and in 1991 she made her Broadway debut. In her later years she discussed the history of the Hollywood musical in documentaries and was featured in That's Entertainment! III in 1994. She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006.
Cyd Charisse was born 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 her older brother Ernest E. Finklea Jr., who tried to say "Sis". It was later given the spelling of "Cyd" by Arthur Freed.
She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout of 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". She was educated at the Hollywood Professional School.
During a European tour, she met up again with Nico Charisse, a young dancer she had studied with for a time in Los Angeles. They married in Paris in 1939 and had a son, Nicky.
Charisse appeared uncredited in some films like Escort Girl (1941) and was in a short for Warner Bros, The Gay Parisian (1942).
The outbreak of World War II led to the closing of the ballet company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff's Something to Shout About (1943) at Columbia. This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton—who had also discovered Gene Kelly—and soon she joined the Freed Unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer.
Charisse made some uncredited appearances in Mission to Moscow (1943) (as a ballet dancer) and Thousands Cheer (1943). She was loaned out to Warner Bros. for In Our Time (1944), playing a ballerina.
She was also featured as a ballerina in Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946), dancing with Fred Astaire. Feedback was positive and Charisse was given her first speaking part supporting Judy Garland in the 1946 film The Harvey Girls.
She followed it with Three Wise Fools (1946), and she danced with Gower Champion to "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946). She also had a supporting role in the Esther Williams musical Fiesta (1947).
Charisse was second billed in The Unfinished Dance (1947) with Margaret O'Brien, but the film was a box office flop. She had a good supporting part in On an Island with You (1948) with Esther Williams again and danced in The Kissing Bandit (1948). She had a supporting part in Words and Music (1948).
Charisse was given another opportunity in a "B" movie, Tension (1950), where she was third billed, but it was a box office disappointment. She was billed fifth in the prestigious East Side, West Side (1949) and was borrowed by Universal to play the female lead in The Mark of the Renegade (1951).
Back at MGM Charisse was the leading lady in The Wild North (1951) with Stewart Granger, which was a huge hit. Because Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, Kelly chose Charisse to partner with him in the celebrated "Broadway Melody" ballet sequence from Singin' in the Rain (1952), which was acknowledged soon after its release as one of the greatest musicals of all time.
Charisse had a significant role in Sombrero (1953) as well as the lead female role in The Band Wagon (1953), in which she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed "Dancing in the Dark" and "Girl Hunt Ballet" routines. Vincente Minnelli directed. Critic Pauline Kael said that "when the bespangled Charisse wraps her phenomenal legs around Astaire, she can be forgiven everything, even her three minutes of 'classical' ballet and the fact that she reads her lines as if she learned them phonetically." The film was another classic but lost money for MGM.
Charisse had a cameo in Easy to Love (1953) and then co-starred with Kelly in the Scottish-themed musical film Brigadoon (1954), directed by Minnelli. It was a box office disappointment. She again took the lead female role (alongside Kelly) in his MGM musical It's Always Fair Weather (1955), which also lost money. In between she made an appearance in Deep in My Heart (1954).
Charisse co-starred with Dan Dailey in Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), which earned $3.7 million at the box office, with production costs of $2.4 million. She rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings (1957), a musical remake of 1939's Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo's role. Astaire paid tribute to Charisse in his autobiography, calling her "beautiful dynamite" and writing: "That Cyd! When you've danced with her, you stay danced with." The film was well received but lost money for MGM.
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.