Cyd Charisse (1921-2008)

The cinema's greatest legs are dancing up to heaven today. Cyd Charisse will get there quickly: the length, the extension, the body flight! She'll be there in two or three grand jetées. When I think of Charisse, my heart usually leaps straight to Brigadoon. It appears in my mind's eye far more often than its fairytale time table of once every 100 years.

I don't think there was a screen romance in my childhood movie loving that felt as sympatico as the one between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, two phenomenal musical stars and raven haired beauties. How they swooned over each other. I can hear Gene breathily singing to/falling for her right now...

The mist of May is in the gloamin', and all the clouds are holdin' still.
So take my hand and let's go roamin' through the heather on the hill.
The mornin' dew is blinkin' yonder. There's lazy music in the rill,
And all I want to do is wander through the heather on the hill.

I fell in love right along with him, and in both directions, too. They remain one of my favorite screen couples. Cyd, who was 87 years old and one of the last surviving goddesses of the screen musical's heyday, was born Tula Ellice Finklea. Old Hollywood always changed the names to add glamour, simplicity and marquee snap. She will be missed.

She's Got Legs. She Knows How To Use 'Em

Happy birthday to 86 years-young Cyd Charisse. It must be comforting when you're nearing ninety to realize that you're already immortal. I first fell in love with the very leggy Cyd Charisse from her work in Brigadoon (I wanted her and Gene Kelly to work it out. And maybe adopt me, too) and Singin' in the Rain. I saw both at a young and impressionable age at the historic Redford Theater and I was a goner. It's a place that is very dear to my cinephile heart since it planted the seeds of what grew into this gargantuan obsession o' mine. It's still my favorite place to see an old movie and I try to get there whenever I'm visiting Michigan.

For more reading on the one and only Cyd Charisse, here's a good tribute site and another

But enough with the talking. More dancing! (from Silk Stockings and Singin' in the Rain)