MUSIC: Famous singer Irene Cara and actress dies at 63

Fame, Flash­dance and Irene Cara has died at the age of 63.

She is an Amer­i­can singer and actress best known for the title track from the 1980 film Fame and for co-writ­ing and singing on her block­buster Flash­dance. What a Feel­ing” won an Acad­e­my Award and a Gram­my Award.

She lat­er co-starred in films with Clint East­wood and Tatum O’Neal.

Cara’s pub­li­cist who announced her death said she died at her home in Flori­da, but her cause was “cur­rent­ly unknown.”

Born in 1959 in the Bronx, New York, Cara, the youngest of five chil­dren, began her career on Span­ish-lan­guage tele­vi­sion. Her father is Puer­to Rican and her moth­er is Cuban-American.

When she was a child, she record­ed music in both Span­ish and Eng­lish, and also appeared in Broad­way musicals.

But it was­n’t until she played Coco Her­nan­dez in 1980 and sang the theme song to Fame that Cara shot to fame.

Her per­for­mance earned her a Gold­en Globe nom­i­na­tion for Best Actress in 1981.

Cara then co-wrote and sang “Flash­dance What A Feel­ing,” the song from the 1983 block­buster film Flash­dance, for which she won a Gram­my Award for Best Female Pop Vocal and an Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Song. has been awarded.

In 1984 she won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Song for Car­la.
Flash­dance was the third high­est-gross­ing film of 1983.

Her spokesper­son for Cara, Judith A Moose, praised her, say­ing, “She is a gift­ed soul whose lega­cy will live on for­ev­er through her music and films.” 

She also said she was work­ing on an upcom­ing project when Car­la passed away, and that she now plans to com­plete it with her Car­la representative.

“She wants it,” Moose said of the client on his own offi­cial Twit­ter account.