Cyd Charisse makes technically exact dancing feel charged with desire. We rate her highly as a dancing actor, with a firm reservation about the dialogue, which can sound learned rather than felt.
Fi1m perspective
In the green sequinned dress in Singin' in the Rain (1952), Cyd Charisse needs little dialogue to make an impression. Her appearance in the ‘Broadway Melody’ ballet with Gene Kelly is brief, but there is nothing tentative about it. We were delighted by the combination of precision and sensuality: she makes exact movement look pleasurable rather than dutiful. There is glamour in the costume, certainly, but the dancing is what makes us keep watching.
Stanley Donen and Kelly’s film is our clearest recommendation for her, with its slight romance outweighed by the comic timing and pleasure of the performances. The brevity of her appearance helps: she is given the work she does best, without much dialogue to carry. Her technical control makes the attraction more convincing; there is no uncertainty about the way she moves. It is a useful introduction to Charisse because it lets us see how much she can suggest within a dance, without asking her to sustain a character through a succession of spoken scenes.
That appearance brought her to prominence after dance roles in Arthur Freed’s MGM musicals, and substantial parts followed. The Band Wagon (1953) paired her with Fred Astaire for ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and ‘Girl Hunt Ballet’; Brigadoon (1954), directed by Vincente Minnelli, put her opposite Kelly again. She returned to Astaire in Silk Stockings (1957), a musical remake of Ninotchka.
The limitation is the acting between numbers: her dialogue can sound learned, and we find her less persuasive when a scene depends on speech alone. That matters in a musical, since the scenes between dances still have to hold our attention. As the studio musical declined, she continued in acting roles, television and stage work, but those later appearances are not the basis of our enthusiasm. For a longer introduction, choose The Band Wagon and give the scenes between its dances a little patience.
Biography
Cyd Charisse was an American dancer and actress. Born Tula Ellice Finklea on 8 March 1922 in Amarillo, Texas, she studied ballet after recovering from polio in childhood and toured with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as a teenager under the names Felia Siderova and Maria Istomina.
She entered films in the 1940s, initially credited as Lily Norwood, and became known for her dance sequences in MGM musicals. Charisse danced with Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Brigadoon (1954), and with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957). She later appeared in television series including Murder, She Wrote and made her Broadway debut in Grand Hotel in 1992. She received the National Medal of Arts in 2006.
Charisse was married to dancer and teacher Nico Charisse from 1939 until their divorce in 1947, and to singer Tony Martin from 1948 until her death on 17 June 2008 in Los Angeles.
