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OF CYD CHARISSE
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A Day with Cyd Charisse
On 'Fantasy Island"
of TheColumnists.com
When I first heard that actress-dancer Cyd Charisse had died last week at age 86, I was startled. Could it really have been 25 years ago that I spent much of a summer afternoon with her on a soundstage in Burbank, marvelling at how well time had treated her?
We were on the set of ABC's "Fantasy Island" and star Ricardo Montalban was filming a scene with another guest star, Cesar Romero, so Ms. Charisse and I had to sit real close to each other and whisper so we wouldn't mess up the scene with the sound of our voices.
I've had some rugged assignments before, but that was among the toughest. It is not easy to sit that close to a woman as beautiful as Cyd Charisse was in 1983 and keep your mind on your note-taking. She had not yet turned 61, but she looked 15-20 years younger. She was still slender and shapely and her face was flawless, her eyes mesmerizing.
As far as I can tell, she took care of herself real well and remained a handsome woman until the end. She died June 17 in Los Angeles.
Cyd Charisse had a smoldering sexuality that wouldn't quit. And she was a consumate professional as a dancer. Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, probably her two most famous dance partners, were too gentlemanly to ever put ratings on their many dance partners over the years, but in separate interviews I had with Astaire and Kelly they both told me they really enjoyed working with her on screen and, in both cases, I think I remember a certain glint in each man's eyes. Beyond question, the "Girl Hunt" number Charisse did with Astaire in "The Band Wagon" (1953) and the equally sizzling "Broadway ballet" number she did with Kelly the year before in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) were the sexiest dances either man ever did with anyone.
I'm guessing it was all about those fabulous legs of hers. They seemed to go on forever. Sure, Ann Miller had long, long legs, too, but the Charisse legs were flawless. Talk about your "Stairway to Paradise."
But, alas, I digress. Back to the day I actually met her in 1983. It was my first year of a three-year gig as a Hollywood-based columnist for The San Jose Mercury News, where I also served as TV editor, and Knight Ridder Newspapers, which featured me as a nationally syndicated entertainment columnist. I'd been invited to the set of "Fantasy Island" by its star, Ricardo Montalban, with whom I was quite friendly. Montalban knew I was keenly interested in stars of the old Hollywood and thought I'd be happy to meet both Romero and Charisse.
In the storyline, especially written for Charisse, she played a former dancer named Julie Mars who had once been both dance partner and lover to Mr. Roarke, the mysterious character Montalban played in the series. When he refused to leave Fantasy Island to marry her, Julie became despondent and drove away in an emotional fugue that ended with a horrendous accident that crippled her, finishing her dancing career. Julie comes to Fantasy Island with one desperate hope--to dance once more with Mr. Roarke.
Ironically, in real life, Charisse was exceptionally fit and able to dance divinely, but Montalban himself had been injured in what I recall was a fall from a horse and had to walk with the assistance of a cane. For the sequence in which Charisse and Montalban finally dance together again, they had to put both of them on a wheeled platform that could be moved with them on it, leaving the impression they were whirling around the dance floor, the camera showing them only from the waist up.
For both veteran performers, the "Fantasy Island" episode was a reunion after many, many years. In 1947, MGM had imported Montalban from Mexico and given him a big buildup as a new leading man. For his first picture, they chose "Fiesta," a musical starring swimmer Esther Williams as a would-be lady matador in Mexico and Montalban as a reluctant matador who really wanted to be a dancer, over his wealthy father's objections.
(The script was co-authored by Lester Cole, whose career later was ruined by the Sen. Joseph McCarthy probe of communist influence in Hollywood. Cole became one of the legendary "Hollywood Ten," who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and went to prison. When I met Cole many years later, after the blacklist had ended, he was able to laugh over the committee's scrutiny of "Fiesta," looking for its hidden commie messages.)
In one of the most charming and delightful sequences in "Fiesta," moviegoers got to see the young, handsome Montalban dancing with an exotic young dancer played by Cyd Charisse, then a relative newcomer to Hollywood musicals.
"I felt totally inadequate in her presence as a dancer. I was just there for window dressing," Montalban told me that day. He had no training as a dancer and was worried he'd make a fool out of himself dancing with this sleek, handsome girl who had come from the Ballet Russe to movies. "But I had a wife and four children. If the studio said that's what you've got to do, that's what I did."
When I repeated that admission to Charisse as we watched Ricardo do his scene with Romero, she grinned broadly. "Actually, Ricardo had a wonderful natural talent for dance," she said. "And Ricardo is so gracious that people would just reach out to him. He was so willing. He really wanted to learn."
As Montalban recalled it, the beautiful young Charisse became his teacher, taking him by the hand and leading him through the dance steps, slowly, patiently and with great understanding.
"Instead of being disappointed that she had to dance with someone who had never danced before, she made me feel very comfortable," he told me. "For some reason, I could create the illusion that I was a dancer."
MGM liked what they saw and so did moviegoers. The film was popular and so the studio re-teamed them again and again in "The Kissing Bandit" (1948), "On and Island With You" (1948), "Sombrero" (1953) and even loaned them out to Universal for a fifth film together, "Mark of the Renegade" in 1951.
"He was so strong that he could handle me," Charisse recalled. "(Choreographer) Hermes Pan was always throwing him into a number with me because he could move so well."
Because Charisse was taller than many other female dancers, she often looked as if she might overpower her male dance partners. That's especially noteworthy in "The Band Wagon," where the shorter, slimmer Fred Astaire seemed to have his hands full with the sexy, volatile Charisse. She plays a slinky type opposite his make-believe private eye in the "Girl Hunt" number, a parody of the then phenomenally popular Mike Hammer novels by Mickey Spillane. She also seemed every bit the match of Astaire in "Silk Stockings" (1957), the musical version of "Ninotchka," in which Charisse is a stern Russian officer being seduced by western ways in the Cold War musical.
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Fred Astaire in the famous "Girl Hunt" number from the 1953 musical "The Band Wagon." Hey, it looks as if Fred's "girl hunt" was successful. But do you think he can handle her? |
The more muscular Gene Kelly seemed a better match in the so-called "Broadway Ballet" number in "Singin' in the Rain," but I always had the feeling if she wrapped those long legs around him, she'd have him at her mercy, which was not exactly a fate worse than death. They made a few more pictures together, including "Brigadoon" (1954), "It's Always Fair Weather" (1955) and "Invitation to the Dance" (1957).
Because Charisse wasn't a tap dancer, her style on film was considerably different from a Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth or Eleanor Powell. Her dance sequences were almost always balletic in nature. I've always believed she had an elegant majesty while dancing on screen and the grace and form she brought to the dance floor served her well in the dramatic scenes she often played in her later films such as "Twilight for the Gods" with Rock Hudson and "Party Girl" with Robert Taylor, both made in 1958.
Like Astaire and Kelly, Charisse had to start taking non-musical roles in order to keep her star aloft in the Hollywood heavens after MGM broke up its vaunted musical teams. She was always a pretty good dramatic actress, but it was tough on her when the musical era in Hollywood really ended in the early 1960s. Her husband, singer Tony Martin, suffered the same rough period when both his film and recording careers faded.
When we talked, Charisse had mostly been doing episodic television and, the occasional small film role. (Later, in 1992, she made her Broadway debut in the unsuccessful musical version of the MGM Oscar-winner "Grand Hotel.") But she was sanguine about the future of dance in America, if not musical films.
"There's more interest in dance here now than there ever was before," she told me that day in 1983. "When we were making those musicals, there were only two ballet companies in the United States. Today there are dozens."
I'm sorry there wasn't much more opportunity to see Cyd Charisse dance and act in her later years, but I'm confident she lived a genuinely happy life. Her marriage to Tony Martin lasted 60 years, ended only by her death from complications after suffering a heart attack. Martin is still alive and will be 96 years old this coming Christmas Day.
Thanks to the booming home video market and cable repertory cinemas like Turner Classic Movies, the films of Cyd Charisse will continue to captivate millions for generations to come. Personally, I'm so glad that I had that rare chance to chat with her in 1983 and to watch her dance again, up close and in person. She was and will always be unforgettable to me.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photos are courtesy of MGM studios and Turner Classic Movies. This column first posted June 23, 2008.
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