Cara was 20 when director Alan Parker was looking for raw talent for his film Fame, which followed the ups and downs of actors and singers at the New York High School Of Performing Arts. Initially, he was unconvinced but when he heard Cara sing the title song he had no qualms about casting her as the ambitious Coco Hernandez.
Parker said: “I was surprised how good she was. Her great voice was almost a bonus. “It’s fair to say that the character Coco’s unbridled ambition in our story clearly mirrored Irene’s in real life.”
The song’s lyrics “I’m gonna live forever. Baby, remember my name” became some of the best-known in Hollywood history, and the hit won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Although not picked for an acting role in Flashdance, legendary producer Giorgio Moroder knew Cara was the best person to sing the film’s title song. She and producer Keith Forsey only had a melody to work with, but together wrote the memorable lyrics while on a limo ride to the studio.
As singer and co-writer, Cara won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Flashdance...What A Feeling, which shot to the top of the US charts and also won her a Grammy. Moroder produced an album with Cara, What A Feelin’, but she would not become rich, despite the monster hits.
The singer said at the time: “I had two of the biggest hits of the decade and I was not seeing a dime.” She sued, winning $1.5million, however the action meant she was snubbed by the music industry.
Born Irene Cara Escalera in New York, her father Gaspar was a saxophonist and her mother had Cuban roots. At the age of three she was a finalist in the Little Miss America pageant, and she made a record and worked on television before she was 10.
Appearing in the TV series The Electric Company led to her being cast in 1976 film Sparkle with Philip Michael Thomas, who went on to become a big star in the 1980s hit TV series Miami Vice. Cara married stuntman Conrad Palmisano in 1986 but they divorced five years later. In recent years she formed an all-female band, Hot Caramel, and lived in Florida.