Status: 11/26/2022 5:09 p.m
With “What a Feeling” she had a world disco hit in 1983, but after that it became quiet about singer Irene Cara. Now she died in Florida at the age of 63 – for reasons that are still unknown, as her agent announced.
The US singer and actress Irene Cara is dead. Her agent Judith Moose wrote on Cara’s Twitter profile that the 63-year-old died at her home in Florida “for reasons that are still unknown”. The cause of death will be released when information becomes available, Moose said.
The Caras family is currently requesting privacy, Moose wrote, describing the singer as a “wonderfully blessed soul whose legacy will forever live on in her music and films.”
Cara was an actress and singer
Cara was born in the Bronx in New York in 1959 and appeared on Spanish and US television from an early age, including with her father’s mambo band. As an actress, she also had her first minor successes at a young age in the theater as well as with “Sparkle – Der Weg zum Star” and in the slavery mini-series “Roots”.
In 1980, the lead role of Coco Hernandez in the theater drama “Fame” and its Oscar-winning title song finally helped her to break through. A sitcom pilot followed in the USA in 1981, which was not developed into a series after bad reviews.
Golden Globe and Grammy for “Flashdance” hit
Cara’s greatest success was her song “What a Feeling” for the film “Flashdance”: For the hit she wrote together with Italo-Disco producers Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey, Cara won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Grammy Award as well best pop vocalist.
The song also became a big hit thanks to a clip with film excerpts on then-nascent music television and topped the US charts for six weeks.
In Germany, too, the song, which is still popular on the radio today, was able to hold its own in the hit list for more than half a year. The Gesellschaft für Verbraucherforschung put it in seventh place in the German annual charts for 1983.
Recently rather quiet about the artist
After that, Cara did not have any major successes, also because she was considered difficult because of a legal dispute with the US record company that was only settled years later. In 2001, a new recording with DJ Bobo made it into the German charts.