Irene Cara

Known primarily for her vocal work on film soundtracks, Irene Cara sustained an acting career that had started in childhood. Born to Latin American parents and raised in New York City, she made her Broadway debut at age eight in the 1967 musical Maggie Flynn and returned to the stage several years later in the off-Broadway production The Me Nobody Knows. By eighteen she had added television and film credits, appearing in the miniseries Roots 2 as well as the movies Aaron Loves Angela and Sparkle.

In 1980 her mainstream breakthrough arrived with a role in Fame, where she performed the Oscar-winning title song that reached the Top Ten; the same film also featured her Top 40 single “Out Here on My Own.” Building on that exposure, she issued her debut album Anyone Can See in 1982. One year later she topped the charts with “Flashdance...What a Feelin’,” a track she co-wrote for the motion picture Flashdance, earning another Oscar along with several Grammys and two AMA awards.

Her second album, What a Feelin’, arrived later in 1982 and introduced a disco-pop style that contrasted with the R&B emphasis of its predecessor. The set produced three Top 40 singles—“Why Me?,” “Breakdance,” and “The Dream (Hold on to Your Dream)”—the last of which also functioned as the theme for Joel Schumacher’s D.C. Cab. Additional screen roles followed through the rest of the decade, yet her third album, Carasmatic, stayed mired in litigation for years.

That delay prompted a return to the stage, where she joined the well-received touring revival of Jesus Christ Superstar in 1993. She subsequently toured Europe and Asia, served as a backup singer, and recorded several dance-pop singles for Polydor. Cara also appeared on the musical television programs NBC’s Hit Me, Baby, One More Time and CMT’s Gone Country. In 2011 she and her band Hot Caramel released their first album, Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel. Irene Cara died at her home in Largo, Florida on November 25, 2022; she was 63 years of age.