Irene Cara - A biography

Irene Cara Escalera was an American singer and actress. She was born in The Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Cara, a factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban. Cara had two sisters and two brothers. At the age of three, she was one of five finalists for the "Little Miss America" pageant. She began to play the piano by ear, studied music, acting and dance seriously, and began taking dance lessons when she was five. Her performing career started with her singing and dancing professionally on Spanish-language television. She made early TV appearances on The Original Amateur Hour and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.
In 1971-1972, she was a regular on PBS's educational program The Electric Company as a member of the show's band, the Short Circus. As a child, Cara recorded a Spanish-language record for the Latin market and an English-language Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington, which featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr. and Roberta Flack.
Cara attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.
The 1980 hit film Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Cara to stardom. She was originally cast as a dancer, but when producers David Da Silva and Alan Marshall and screenwriter Christopher Gore heard her voice, they re-wrote the role of Coco Hernandez for her to play. As Coco Hernandez, she sang both the title song "Fame" and the film's other single, "Out Here on My Own". These songs helped make the film's soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. Further history was made at the Academy Awards that year: It was the first time that two songs from the same film and sung by the same artist were nominated in the same category.
Cara was set to star in her own sitcom, Irene, on NBC in 1981. The cast had veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans. However, even though the pilot aired, it was not picked up by the network for the fall season. In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film D.C. Cab, about a group of cabbies. One of the characters, Tyrone, played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her. Her contribution to the film's soundtrack, "The Dream " played over the closing credits of the film, and was a minor hit, peaking at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1984.
In 1982, Cara earned the Image Award for Best Actress when she co-starred with Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash in the NBC Movie of the Week, Maya Angelou's Sister, Sister. Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story, and earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982's Killing 'em Softly. Cara continued to perform in live theater. In 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in The Wiz on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had first portrayed in the original Broadway production.
Watch the video for the full story!

[@phoenixfox3379]

good and respectful video

[@user-bx2cg2ec8c]

RIP sparkle

[@WojciechPawlowski-wy9he]

Puerto Rico : The Gates of the riches. NG 1937.. ❤❤.

[@MrJimmy527]

Irene Cara as the Voice of Leonette from the Jungle King