Personal Life
Charisse was married to singer Tony Martin from 1948 until her death. The marriage lasted 60 years. Charisse's first husband, whose surname she kept, was Nico Charisse (March 1906 – April 1970); they were married from 1939 to 1947.
She had two sons, Nico "Nicky" Charisse from her first marriage, and Tony Martin, Jr. (August 28, 1950 - April 10, 2011), from her second. One of her daughters-in-law is Liv Lindeland, who was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year for 1972. A niece of hers by marriage is actress Nana Visitor.
Charisse wrote a joint biography with Martin (and Dick Kleiner) entitled The Two of Us (1976). She was featured in the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records under "Most Valuable Legs", since a $5 million insurance policy was reportedly accepted on her legs in 1952. MGM was reputed to have insured her legs for a million dollars each, but Charisse later revealed that that had been an invention of the MGM publicity machine.
Her daughter-in-law, Sheila Charisse, was a victim of the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979.
In 1990, following similar moves by MGM colleagues Debbie Reynolds and Angela Lansbury, Charisse produced the exercise video Easy Energy Shape Up, targeted for active senior citizens.
Read more about this topic: Cyd Charisse
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