Legs: the dance of Cyd Charisse

In Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Cyd Charisse’s ballet solo steals the limelight in a scene featuring show girls in plumed hats, solemn white horses, Lucille Ball whipping a litter of dancing panthers into line, and a pink satin carousel. In a later scene she dances amidst a quivering mass of foamy soap bubbles, which apparently wreaked havoc with the technical equipment. Such stunning production numbers are key to appreciating the star power of Cyd Charisse.

Charisse had suffered polio as a child but overcame her frailty with the help of dance lessons from the age of eight. At 15 she joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. When WWII caused the break up of the company, Charisse returned to Los Angeles where she joined the MGM film studio as a ballet dancer. Her career saw her pair up with two of Hollywood’s dancing greats: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Her first breakthrough role was 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain. The Broadway Melody Ballet shows off her ability to do things with her body we cannot define in a technical language; she is, as Fred Astaire once put it,  “beautiful dynamite”. In the diaphanous dream ballet she commands Gene Kelly with a 25-foot Chinese silk scarf that wafts over an ultra violet landscape at the blowsy provocation of an unseen wind machine.

Her popularity reached its apex in 1953 when she appeared on the cover of Life magazine for an article titled ‘A spectrum of stars’. In The Band Wagon she played ballerina Gabrielle Gerard opposite Fred Astaire. The choreography combines Astaire’s fast, rhythmic dancing with Charisse’s lyrical ballet to create scenes of true romance. By night they test out their off-stage chemistry in Central Park before being conveyed back to reality in a horse-drawn-carriage. The Girl Hunt Ballet is one of the most memorable finales in musical history and its influence can be seen in the setting of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal and Billie Jean film clips.

In Meet Me In Las Vegas (1956), Charisse dances to Tchaikovsky in an impromptu volleyball ballet, before the ball hits her in the head and she has to be carried off court by a charming knight in white satin, who kindly aids the recovery process by joining her in a poolside pas de deux.

And her title role in Nicholas Ray’s Party Girl (1958) lends itself to jazzy, sinuous dances that are jaw dropping, even by today’s standards.

Charisse had the strength and grace of a ballerina and an extraordinary on-screen presence that allowed her to play the cold and aloof femme fatale and the romantic ballerina with equal aplomb.

She retired from dance in the late ’50s with the fading of the golden age of Hollywood musicals.

One of her last public appearances was in 1992 when she made her Broadway debut in the musical version of Grand Hotel as the ballerina Elizaveta Grushinskaya.