Why didn’t Cyd Charisse––who died in Los Angeles on Tuesday at the age of 86––ever fully become the Ginger Rogers to Gene Kelly’s Fred Astaire? To compare Charisse directly to Rogers would be unfair; the former was an athletic show-stopper who regularly held down solos seemingly designed to draw attention to their own difficulty, while the latter’s dance career revolved around the uneviable task of making Fred Astaire’s choreography seem spontaneous and easy. And Charisse also made movies with Astaire––The Band Wagon and Silk Stockings offered two of her biggest roles––but her chemistry with the big baller of ballroom and tap dance was virtually nonexistant. The impossibly leggy, mildly exotic, confident almost to the point of camp Charisse added counterpoint nuance to Kelly’s weird barrel-chested blue-collar ballet. It never felt like it was a perfect pairing, and that was maybe what was exciting about it: as a partner and as a choreographer, Kelly knew how to use and play off their incongruities.

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