When I think of Ann Reinking, I see legs. Legs in shimmering black tights. Legs in heels. Legs that extend effortlessly to a 6 o’clock extension. They weren’t the only thing that made her dancing so resplendent, but they were the anchor to her daring. Aside from their shape, they had a strength that rooted her body, giving her pelvic isolations a silky sort of groove and her precision a natural, teasing sensuality. Even stretched out on a bed, her legs could tell a story.

Ms. Reinking, who died in her sleep at 71 while visiting family in Seattle over the weekend, was one of Bob Fosse’s most important dancers and, for a time, his lover. That bed comes into play in a non-dancing scene from Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film “All That Jazz,” in which Ms. Reinking plays a thinly veiled version of herself. In that moment, all she wants is for Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, in the role based on Fosse) to stop sleeping around.

The dialogue is funny, but her legs steal the scene: Leaning back, she drapes them, bare, across the mattress. Her power is enhanced by her piercing blue eyes and long, glossy dark hair, parted in the middle to ’70s perfection. (Is there anything cooler than a 1970s dancer?) But really, it comes down to those legs.