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RIP Cyd Charisse

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:43 pm
by fantine33
Age 87.

I never, ever do RIPs. But this one really got to me, for several reasons.

She was a beautiful dancer and a beautiful lady.

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:39 pm
by mellytu74
And a wonderful partner for our boy, Gene Kelly.

Let's a do a couple of leg kicks while wearing poison green dancing dresses. :D

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:52 pm
by 5LD
Growing up as a dancer I wanted to be her.

She was pure grace and beauty.

Four celeb deaths have been hard for me....
Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Danny Kaye and now Cyd.

My first kitty was named Sid in tribute.

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:00 pm
by silvercamaro
She was my idol. When I was about 12, I realized how tall she was, and how tall I wasn't, which meant I'd never achieve the wonderful lines she could create with her body. Sigh. Just the thought of her still gives me better posture, however.

I always will think of her as one of the most extraordinarily beautiful people ever to be on the planet.

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:02 pm
by kayrharris
Truly a classy woman. I enjoyed everything she was in. Sorry to hear this.

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:23 pm
by SportsFan68
She was so beautiful and so glamorous, just wonderful to watch.

Makes me want to watch Singin in the Rain again.

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:31 pm
by SportsFan68
And Brigadoon. I'd like to watch that again too.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:58 am
by fantine33
mellytu74 wrote:And a wonderful partner for our boy, Gene Kelly.

Let's a do a couple of leg kicks while wearing poison green dancing dresses. :D
Tell me about it. Screw Debbie Reynolds and Jean Hagen, to me Cyd Charisse was the female star of Singin' in the Rain.

When I was a kid I used to use a knitting needle in place of the cigarette holder and do the CC dance. I wanted a flapper dress with a skirt made out of jeweled straps SO badly!

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:07 am
by themanintheseersuckersuit
silvercamaro wrote:She was my idol. When I was about 12, I realized how tall she was, and how tall I wasn't, which meant I'd never achieve the wonderful lines she could create with her body. Sigh. Just the thought of her still gives me better posture, however.

I always will think of her as one of the most extraordinarily beautiful people ever to be on the planet.
From the obit of Tula Ellice Finklea
She regularly partnered Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire on screen and was famous for the length and shapeliness of her legs, which were insured in her prime for $10 million.

They were so long and lissome that they gave the impression of a woman over six foot tall, though in fact she was a surprisingly petite 5ft 6in.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:10 am
by mellytu74
The movie I want to see again is It's Always Fair Weather.

Letterboxed, of course.

It has one of my favorite Cyd Charrisse numbers, "Baby, You Knock Me Out," where she dances with a bunch of boxers in a gym.

Almost makes up for the fact she has no big number with Gene Kelly in the movie.

Re: RIP Cyd Charisse

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:34 am
by fuzzywuzzy
fantine33 wrote:Age 87.

I never, ever do RIPs. But this one really got to me, for several reasons.

She was a beautiful dancer and a beautiful lady.
fanny,

One of my favorite roles that Cyd portrayed was in "The Harvey Girls" she played Deborah from Rhode Island - the dancer.

She exuded elegance, grace, and beauty!

I feel fortunate that we (our generation) actually knew who she was! I hope that other generations are lucky enough to watch her dance on celluloid!

All I can say is WOW...she was magnificent!

I hope that TCM does a Cyd Charisse tribute soon!


fuzzy

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:37 am
by silvercamaro
themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:
She regularly partnered Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire on screen and was famous for the length and shapeliness of her legs, which were insured in her prime for $10 million.

They were so long and lissome that they gave the impression of a woman over six foot tall, though in fact she was a surprisingly petite 5ft 6in.
I am astonished. If I had known I had only to stretch a few inches more, I would have spent my early adolescence hanging from the top of a door.

This also tells me that some of her dancing partners were shorter than I had realized.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:44 am
by silverscreenselect
A few months ago, I saw the Dean Martin/Matt Helm movie The Silencers on DVD. It was one of those I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and, frankly, what I thought was cool as a junior high school student hadn't aged very well.

However, Charisse, who was 44 or 45 when the film was made, did a dance over the title credits and another one later in the movie (she played a night club entertainer). Terrific moves and very sexy (especially for the era when the film was made). It turned out to be the only really entertaining five minutes of the entire film.

Great entertainer and a classy lady.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:52 am
by nitrah55
The NYTimes obit quotes her as saying her husband, Tony Martin, could always tell who'd she'd been dancing with when she came home from the studio.

If she had bruises, Gene Kelly. When she danced with Astaire, not a scratch.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:48 am
by ulysses5019
nitrah55 wrote:The NYTimes obit quotes her as saying her husband, Tony Martin, could always tell who'd she'd been dancing with when she came home from the studio.

If she had bruises, Gene Kelly. When she danced with Astaire, not a scratch.
And when she danced with pea, bite marks.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:03 pm
by ghostjmf
Class Act.

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:05 pm
by ghostjmf
I sure wish I knew how to segregate my comment on Cyd Charisse from biter comments. Oh well.