Cyd Charisse, one of the icons of the Hollywood musicals from the 50s, died Tuesday of what is believed to have been a heart attack in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was 86 years old.

The musical film star was born Tulla Ellis Finklea on March 8, 1922 in Amarillo, Texas. Her father was a jeweler and her mother a housewife. Tulla started taking ballet classes at doctor’s order after she got polio, but this soon turned into a promising career for the young girl.

Before appearing in movies, she was a dancer for the Ballet Rousses de Monte Carlo Company, with which she toured Europe. It was with this occasion that the met her first husband, Nico Charisse, with whom she got married in 1939 and had one son.

After the World War II began, she had to stop working with the company and returned to Los Angeles where she was discovered by MGM, which changed her name to Cyd from Sid, her childhood nickname. It was at MGM that she became one of the most liked and renowned musical actresses and dancers in the history of Hollywood.

Two of the people she worked with were Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, who both liked and appreciated her a lot. She entered the Guinness Book of Records after she insured her famously long feet for the sum of $5 million.

Her career came to a decline as musicals became out of fashion, and there was no use for dancers anymore, but she remained in film buffs’ hearts for her roles in movies like "Singin’ in the Rain" or "Silk Stockings".