Actress-Dancer Cyd Charisse Dies At 86; Was Native Texan
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Actress-Dancer Cyd Charisse Dies At 86; Was Native Texan
Actress-dancer Cyd Charisse died Tuesday, a day after suffering an apparent heart attack.
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(June 17, 2008)--Dancer and actress Cyd Charisse died Monday at age 86.

Charisse was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles Monday after suffering an apparent heart attack, her publicist said.

The long-legged beauty was born Tula Finklea in 1922 in Amarillo.

She went on to dance with the Ballet Russe as a teenager before going on to star in MGM musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

She appeared in dramatic films, but her fame came from the Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and '50s.

The classically trained ballerina could dance anything, from a pas de deux in 1946's "Ziegfeld Follies" to the lowdown Mickey Spillane satire of 1953's "The Band Wagon" with Astaire.

She also forged a popular song-and-dance partnership on television and in nightclub appearances with her husband, singer Tony Martin.
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