Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959^{[note 1]} – November 25, 2022) was an American singer and actress^[13] who rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film Fame, and for recording the film's title song "Fame", which reached No. 1 in several countries. In 1983, Cara co-wrote and sang the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film Flashdance), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984.

Before her success with Fame, Cara portrayed the title character Sparkle Williams in the original 1976 musical drama film Sparkle. Cara died as a result of hypertensive heart disease after hypercholesterolemia at age 63.

Irene Cara Escalera was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children.^[8][12] Her father, Gaspar Cara,^[14] a steel factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban.^[8][12] Cara had two sisters and two brothers.^[12] She began taking dance lessons when she was five.^[8] Her performing career started with her singing and dancing professionally on Spanish-language television. She made early TV appearances on The Original Amateur Hour (singing in Spanish)^[15] and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.^[14] In 1971, she was a regular on PBS's educational program The Electric Company as a member of the Short Circus, the show's band, appearing as a member during the show’s first season.^[8] As a child, Cara recorded a Spanish-language record for the Latin market and an English-language Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington, which featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr., and Roberta Flack.^[16] Cara attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.^[12] In 1985, Cara told Cosmopolitan "I don't mean to sound immodest, but I'd never had any doubt that I'd be successful, nor any fear of success; I was raised as a little goddess who was told she would be a star."^[17]

Cara appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, starting with Maggie Flynn opposite Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy.^[2][18] Shortly thereafter, she was one of five finalists for the "Little Miss America" pageant.^[2] She also appeared in Via Galactica with Raúl Juliá,^[18] Ain't Misbehavin' ^[8] and The Me Nobody Knows (which won an Obie Award).^[2] Cara was the original Daisy Allen on the 1970s daytime serial Love of Life. She later took on the role of Angela in the romance/thriller Aaron Loves Angela,^[2] followed by her portrayal of the title character in Sparkle.^[12]

Television brought Cara international acclaim for serious dramatic roles in Roots: The Next Generations and Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.^[8] John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 28, named her one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976"; that same year, a readers' poll in Right On! magazine named her Top Actress.^[19]

The 1980 hit film Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Cara to stardom. She originally was cast as a dancer, but when producers David Da Silva and Alan Marshall and screenwriter Christopher Gore heard her voice, they re-wrote the role of Coco Hernandez for her to play. In this part, she sang both the title song "Fame" and the single "Out Here on My Own", which were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.^[12] These songs helped make the film's soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album, and it was the first time that two songs from the same film and sung by the same artist were nominated in the same category. Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; "Fame," written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award for best original song that year, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.^[20] Cara earned Grammy Award nominations in 1980 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. Billboard named her Top New Single Artist, and Cashbox magazine awarded her both Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist. Asked by Fame TV series producers to reprise her role as Coco Hernandez, she declined, wanting to focus her attention on her recording career; Erica Gimpel assumed the role.^[21]

In 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in The Wiz on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had portrayed in the original Broadway production. Coincidentally, Cara and Mills had shared the stage together as children in the original 1968 Broadway musical Maggie Flynn, starring Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, in which both young girls played American Civil War orphans.^[22] Cara was set to star in the sitcom Irene in 1981. The cast had veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans. However, the pilot was not picked up by the network for the fall season.^[23] In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film D.C. Cab. One of the characters, Tyrone, played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her.^[22] "The Dream (Hold On to Your Dream)", her contribution to the film's soundtrack, played over the closing credits of the film,^[24] and was a minor hit, peaking at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1984.^[25][26]

In 1982, Cara earned the Image Award for Best Actress when she co-starred with Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash in the NBC Movie of the Week Sister, Sister.^[27] Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story, the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, ^[22] and she earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982's Killing 'em Softly. Cara continued to perform in live theater.

In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie Flashdance: "Flashdance... What a Feeling",^[28] which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara wrote the lyrics to the song with Keith Forsey while riding in a car in New York heading to the studio to record it; Moroder composed the music. Cara admitted later that she was initially reluctant to work with Giorgio Moroder because she had no wish to invite comparisons with Donna Summer, another artist who worked with Moroder.^[29] The song became a hit in several countries, attracting several awards for Cara. She shared the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song with Moroder and Forsey,^[30] becoming the first black woman to win an Oscar in a non-acting category and the youngest to receive an Oscar for songwriting.^[31] She won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance,^[32] 1984 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and American Music Awards for Best R&B Female Artist and Best Pop Single of the Year.^{[citation needed]}

In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller City Heat, co-starring with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and singing the standards "Embraceable You" and "Get Happy". She also co-wrote the theme song "City Heat", sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May 1984, she scored her final Top 40 hit with "Breakdance" going to No. 8. "You Were Made for Me" reached No. 78 that summer, but she did not appear on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O'Neal in Certain Fury. In 1986, Cara appeared in the film Busted Up. She also provided the voice of Snow White in the unofficial sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Filmation's Happily Ever After, in 1993. The same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in a tour of Jesus Christ Superstar with Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.^[33]

Cara released three studio albums: Anyone Can See in 1982, What a Feelin' in 1983,^[12] and Carasmatic in 1987, the most successful of these being What a Feelin'. In 1985, she collaborated with the Hispanic charity supergroup Hermanos in the song "Cantaré, cantarás", in which she sang a solo segment with the Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo. Cara toured Europe and Asia throughout the 1990s, achieving several modest dance hits on European charts, but no U.S. chart hits. She released a compilation of Eurodance singles in the mid-to-late 1990s titled Precarious 90's. Cara also worked as a backup vocalist for Vicki Sue Robinson,^[34] Lou Reed,^[34] George Duke,^[35] Oleta Adams,^[36] and Evelyn "Champagne" King.^[34]

In 1993, a California jury awarded her $1.5 million from a 1985 lawsuit she filed against record executive Al Coury and Network Records, accusing them of withholding royalties from the Flashdance soundtrack and her first two solo records. Cara stated that, as a result, she was labeled as being difficult to work with and that the music industry "virtually blacklisted" her.^[12]

In 2004, Cara received two honors with an induction into the Ciboney Cafe's Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards. In 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, performing "Flashdance... What a Feeling" and covered Anastacia's song "I'm Outta Love" with her all-female band Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed a rendition of "Flashdance" as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.^[37]

In 2005, Cara contributed a dance single, titled "Forever My Love", to the compilation album titled Gay Happening Vol. 12.^[38]

Cara was in Hot Caramel, a band which she formed in 1999.^[39] Their album, called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel, was released in 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT's reality show Gone Country.^[40][41]

Cara married once and had no children. Cara married stuntman and film director Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles on April 13, 1986.^[42] They divorced in 1991.^[14] At the time of her death, Cara was a resident of Florida, living in Largo and maintaining a secondary address in New Port Richey, where her company, Caramel Productions, was located.^[43] She died from arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease after hypercholesterolemia at her home on November 25, 2022, at 63 years of age; she also had diabetes.^[12][44]

• 1968: Maggie Flynn^[18]
• 1970: The Me Nobody Knows^[8][18]
• 1972: Via Galactica^[18]
• 1973: Lotta^[62]
• 1978: Ain't Misbehavin' ^[8] (replaced by Charlayne Woodard during previews)
• 1979: Got Tu Go Disco^[18]
• 1980: The Wiz^[63]
• 1992: Jesus Christ Superstar^[64]
• 1996: What a Feeling!: The Rock & Pop Musicals in Concert

• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance Club Songs chart
• List of artists who reached number one in the United States
• List of Billboard number-one dance club songs
• List of Billboard number-one singles
• List of Puerto Ricans