The Brief but Remarkable Peak of Irene Cara

For a very brief time in the first half of the ‘80s, Irene Cara was everywhere. Cara started out as a child actor/singer. A true double threat, Cara’s earliest credit was on the stage in 1968’s Maggie Flynn—she was just nine years old. From there, she bounced around in numerous other theatrical productions while also acting regularly on TV and in film.

Her first (could have been) big break was as the lead and title character of the 1976 film, Sparkle. Written by Joel Schumacher, Sparkle was a veiled telling of the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes. In a way, Sparkle was Dreamgirls before there was a Dreamgirls. Unfortunately, the film received weak reviews and did little at the box office—disappearing quickly from theaters that year. Sparkle has gone on to become something of a cult favorite all these years later. As a person who ran a video store in a community that was 90% African American, I can tell you we could never keep our 3-4 copies on the shelf back in the ‘90s.

As the ‘80s approached, Cara was working steadily, but nothing quite clicked, until she landed the female lead in Alan Parker’s smash hit 1980 musical, Fame. Telling the story of talented high school students attending a school for the performing arts, Fame was a surprise box office success, and it made Cara an instant star. Not only did she excel in her role of Coco Hernandez, she also sang lead on the smash hit title song (#4 on the Billboard singles chart), and on the top 20 hit “Out Here On My Own.”

She also had the most devastating scene in the film when, needing money, she is talked into disrobing by a slimy photographer. The look on Cara’s face as she gives into the cretin is truly remarkable. All of the pain, sadness, and humiliation registers on her face in a way that feels too raw to adequately describe. For her work on Fame, Cara received a Golden Globe nomination for best leading actress in a musical or comedy, two Grammy nominations, and both of the songs she sung in the film were nominated for the Academy Award for best song in a motion picture. 

 To give you an idea of just how amazing 1980 was for Cara, she also appeared in The Guyana Tragedy, the acclaimed TV film starring Powers Boothe as the cult leader, Jim Jones, and she performed on stage in The Wiz. While Cara may have toiled away for over a decade before finding stardom, when stardom located her, it arrived in full force. 

With the notable exception of the well thought of PBS TV movie, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story (in which she played the wife of the slain civil rights hero) Cara’s subsequent film and TV roles were disappointments. However, the pop chart success of the two singles from Fame did lead Cara to her biggest hit ever: “Flashdance…What a Feeling.” 

The lyrics of the song were written by Cara and Keith Forsey (producer of Billy Idol’s biggest hits), and the music was scored by the great disco legend Giorgio Moroder. Not only was the film Flashdance, (a silly, if enjoyable ’80s artifact, written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Adrian Lyne, about a steelworker who wants to become a member of a prestigious ballet school) a monster box office success, “What a Feeling” went to #1 on the pop charts, and the song was nominated for best song by the Golden Globes and the Academy, winning both awards for Cara, Forsey, and Moroder. Cara was also nominated for four Grammys (winning two) for her work on the film’s music.

Cara was completely ubiquitous in the early to mid-‘80s, and to me, her two biggest hits “Fame” and “What a Feeling” were two of the most ecstatic recordings of the decade. Even now, when either song comes on an ‘80s flashback on the radio, it is absolutely impossible not to turn the volume up to Spinal Tap.

And then it just ended. That’s not to say that Cara stopped working, but that nothing else landed for her. Not a single success in the world of film, TV, or music followed. The career arc of Cara is one of the strangest conundrums I’ve ever seen. Clearly, there was no lack of talent or beauty, but for some performers, the sun only shines on them for so many days. It just seems like Cara deserved a lot more days in the light. 

In a span of just five years, Cara was nominated for two Golden Globes (winning one), six Grammys (winning two), and she won an Oscar. During that stretch she had another top ten hit on the singles chart with “Breakdance,” just missed the top ten with “Why Me?,” and scraped the inside edge of the top 40 with “The Dream,” adding six top 40 hits to her extraordinary five-year run.

As Crash Davis might say, “That’s a career…in any league.”

Irene Cara died on November 25, 2022. She was 63 years old.