Cyd Charisse could do everything—sing, act, and above all, dance like music made flesh. Her impossibly long legs became a Hollywood legend, but her story began far from the lights of MGM. Born Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, in 1922, she entered the world as a fragile, sickly child who contracted polio before she turned six. Doctors prescribed ballet to help rebuild her strength, unaware that those early steps toward recovery would lead her to become one of cinema’s most magnetic performers. What started as physical therapy soon became her calling. Her brother, trying to say “Sis,” mispronounced it as “Cyd,” and from that moment, her transformation from a frail Texas girl to a Hollywood goddess began.
