Actress and Dancer Cyd Charisse

I was deeply saddened by the passing of Cyd Charisse. She was a Hollywood legend from my home town and I studied dance with her teacher in Amarillo, Dixie Dice. According to the legend, Dixie Dice helped Cyd Charisse get started in Hollywood. Charisse flourished in the arts technology environment of film making. Film opened new opportunities for performing artists and even changed the nature of the contributing disciplines of music, dance, literature, and drama. Film became the Gesamtkunstwerk, a term coined by Richard Wagner, denoting a work of art to which music, poetry, mime, painting, etc. all contribute. But now the medium of film combined these disciplines into a new artistic object.

I went to the Dixie Dice Dance Studio to help me move better so I would be a better athlete. Dixie loaned me some tap shoes. First we warmed up with exercises to make us more flexible and stronger. Then we started with flap-step routines up and down the studio, gradually increasing the tempo and adding music. Then we learned shuffle steps. I caught on fast. Dixie was impressed.

Now you should know that Dixie Dice was famous not only for her Broadway-style shows, but the local legend was that she had discovered Cyd Charisse who happened to be from our town. The legend was that Dixie Dice had taught her in ballet classes and recognized that she had star talent. All of the biographies seem to start when Cyd is about 12 or 14 and don't mention Dixie, but the legend goes so far as to claim that Dixie was responsible for getting her a start in Hollywood. It may or may not be true, but the point was that everyone in town subscribed to the local legend.

When I came along, her legend was already established as Cyd Charisse was a big star dancing the Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, to name a few. I had a tap routine and style similar to Donald O'Connor, who often was a sidekick to Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. I even looked a little bit like O'Connor. Dixie wanted to take me to Hollywood, but my Dad said "No" and the rest is history.