Irene Cara

Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959 one claims 1962, and Cara herself implied she was born in 1961 by claiming she turned 59 years old via a 2020 tweet, despite stating she was 24 in a 1983 interview with Dick Clark on ''American Bandstand'' (which would indicate a birth year of 1959). , a year after her tweet, her Twitter profile says that she was born a year later in 1962. Her mother told ''The New York Times'' in 1970 that a young Ms. Cara was 11 years old (which would also indicate a birth year of 1959).|group=note}} – November 25, 2022) was an American singer and actress 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. Provided by Wikipedia