CYD CHARISSE

Cyd Charisse, who brought sizzle and sophistication to dance in such classic movie musicals as "Singin' in the Rain" and "Silk Stockings," died Tuesday. She was 86. She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack on Monday.

Cyd Charisse captured filmgoers'

attention in a quick succession of

films, starting with 1952's "Singin'

in the Rain," in which she partnered

with dancer and actor Gene Kelly in

a steamy ballet.

She partnered with Kelly again in

"Brigadoon" in 1954 and in "It's Always

Fair Weather" the following year.

The film historian and author Larry

Billman said of Cyd Charisse "She was

strong, lithe and "drop-dead gorgeous

to look at," he also said "After years

when Hollywood's leading dancers were

cute and fluffy, Cyd took dance to a

more sensual realm in the 1950s.

Charisse also danced with Fred Astaire,

the premier dancer of his age, in major

production numbers in the '50s. In "The

Band Wagon" (1953), they danced to

the music of "Dancing in the Dark" on

a set that looked like New York City's

Central Park. Four years later, Charisse

and Astaire were partners again in "Silk Stockings." Astaire said Charisse was "beautiful dynamite" on screen. Charisse's other star- maker roles of the 1950s included "Deep in My Heart" (1954), in which she danced a sexy duet with James Mitchell.

Unlike many top female dancers in the era of movie musicals, Charisse was trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition.

Although she occasionally performed solo, she was at her best when she was partnered. "She had technique, ability and she didn't do anything to take away from her partner."

Her glamorous looks fitted well with an emerging trend because in the '50s, Hollywood was all about sex. While actresses Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren dominated their field, Cyd ruled dance. "She personified dancing sophistication."

Earlier in her film career, Charisse's dark hair and eyes led to some unlikely roles as "ethnic-exotic" characters in B movies such as "Fiesta" (1947), in which she played the Latina fiancee of actor Ricardo Montalban.

She was cast as Polynesian in "On an Island With You," a song, dance and swim film starring Esther Williams in 1948.

In interviews, Cyd Charisse said her acting roles were like a vacation compared with the hard work of dancing, but she was not tempted to change her priorities.

"If I had to give up either acting or dancing, I'd choose to keep dancing," she said in a December 1952 interview.

She was born Tula Ellice Finklea on March 8, 1922, in Amarillo, Texas. Her older brother nicknamed her Sid, a variation on Sis. In Hollywood, she changed the spelling to Cyd.

She began ballet lessons at age 6, encouraged by her father, Ernest, after she developed a mild case of polio that left her with a slight atrophy on her right side. She said "I was this tiny, frail little girl, I needed to build up muscle, and I fell in love with dancing from the first lesson,"

During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents enrolled her in ballet classes at a school in Hollywood. One of her teachers was Nico Charisse.

As a teenager, she returned to the school as a full-time student. Not long afterward, Col. W. de Basil, the director of the Ballet Russe dance company, visited the school and saw her dance. He invited her to join his company, and she toured with it under the stage names Natacha Tulaelis and Felia Siderova. Dancers in the company were required to take Russian-sounding names.

In 1939, while she was in France on tour with the ballet company, she and Nico Charisse eloped. They had one son, Nico, before their marriage ended in divorce in 1947.