Irene Cara

Irene Cara (born Irene Cara Escalera) was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and producer, born March 18, 1959 in New York and deceased November 25, 2022 in Largo, Florida. Of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, she grew up in the South Bronx. She began singing and dancing on local Spanish-language television at the age of 7. As a child, she performed in Broadway musicals such as The Me Nobody Knows (which won an Obie Award) and Maggie Flynn. Her first national exposure came from the educational series The Electric Company, where she performed with the group The Short Circus alongside Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, and others.

In the 1980s, Irene Cara achieved worldwide fame with the film Fame (1980), in which she played Coco Hernandez and performed Fame and Out Here On My Own. Both songs were nominated for Oscars in the same year—a first—and Fame won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. She subsequently earned Grammy Award and Golden Globe nominations, and Billboard named her “Top New Single Artist.” In 1983, she scored another major hit with Flashdance… What a Feeling, co-written with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey for the film Flashdance. The track won her an Oscar, the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and two American Music Awards.

She released three studio albums in the 1980s: Anyone Can See (1982), What a Feelin’ (1983), and Carasmatic (1987). In the 1990s, she issued a Euro-dance singles compilation titled Precarious 90’s. She also voiced Snow White in the unofficial sequel Happily Ever After (1993). Meanwhile, she continued acting in TV movies such as Sister, Sister (1982) and For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story, earning NAACP Image Awards nominations for her work.

In the 2000s, she appeared on the show Hit Me Baby One More Time in 2005 and performed at the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne in 2006. Irene Cara died at her home in Florida on November 25, 2022, aged 63, from arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease.