Dancer Cyd Charisse died 17 June 2008 of an apparent heart attack. Born Tula Ellice Finklea in either 1921 or 1922 in Amarillo, Texas, she danced her way through many of Hollywood’s big musicals, and later formed a nightclub/television song-and-dance partnership with her second husband, Tony Martin. In 2006, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts in a White House ceremony.
She took ballet lessons as a child and joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the age of 13. Her first film appearance, 1943’s Something to Shout About with Don Ameche and Janet Blair, credited her as Lily Norwood. She first danced with Fred Astaire in an uncredited role in Ziegfeld Follies in 1946, but that appearance earned her a seven-year contract with MGM, and in 1952, she got her big break in Singin’ in the Rain, when she appeared with Gene Kelly in the “Broadway Melody Ballet” scene. Her first leading role was opposite Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953). Charisse made her Broadway debut in Grand Hotel in 1992, playing an aging ballerina in 1920s Berlin.
Her genre appearances include: two episodes of Fantasy Island (1978, 1983), Warlords of Atlantis (1978), and Brigadoon (1954).
She married her former dance teacher, Nico Charisse, in 1939 (his sister, Nenette Charisse, is actress Nana Visitor’s mother). They divorced in 1947, and the following year she married Tony Martin, who survives her. She is also survived by her two sons: Nicky Charisse and Tony Martin, Jr.