The
multi-talented singer-actress, who played the title role in the original film
in 1976, reflects on a life filled with song and dance.
Irene Cara was only 13 when she was cast as the title role in the
original" Sparkle," the musical-drama about three African American
sisters who form a singing group in the late 1950s. Sparkle, the youngest of
the group, ends up becoming a star.
"Sparkle" launched Cara's career, which kicked into high gear four
years later when she earned rave reviews as Coco Hernandez, the ambitious,
multi-talented New York High School of Performing Arts student in Alan Parker's
boisterous musical "Fame." She earned a Golden Globe nomination and
two Grammy nominations for her recordings of the Oscar-winning title tune and
the Oscar-nominated "Out Here On My Own."
There's been renewed interest in the influential 1976 film, which featured a
classic R&B score by Curtis Mayfield, since the high-profile remake —
starring "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks in the role Cara made
famous and the late Whitney Houston, in her final film as Sparkle's mother —
opened Friday.
Now 50, Cara remembers being embarrassed having to do love scenes with a
grown man, a pre-"Miami
Vice" Philip Michael Thomas, "in front of my mother. Oh, God! I think
that was the worst of it."
Besides Cara, the musical also featured Lonette McKee, Dorian Harewood and
Mary Alice. She recalls that the cast was "very respectful of me being a
minor. I had worked as a child for many years, and there were situations where
adults around me were not so considerate of my age and would behave in raunchy
ways."
She garnered even more recording success with "Flashdance..... What a
Feeling" from the 1983 blockbuster "Flashdance." Cara, who
co-wrote the song with Keith Forsey and composer Giorgio Morodor, won an Oscar,
a Golden Globe and two Grammys.
"If you look at that period, Irene Cara captured the zeitgeist of that
early 1980s," said music film historian Jon Burlingame. "I think she
was so much a part of the pop music and culture of the time."
The Bronx-born Cara started in show business as a 3-year-old when she was a
finalist in the "Little Miss America" pageant. Cara, who is
of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, sang on Spanish-language TV as well as appearing
on "The Original Amateur Hour," "The Tonight Show" and
"The Electric Company" with Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman. After
doing off-Broadway, she made her Broadway debut in 1968 with Shirley Jones and
Jack Cassidy in the musical "Maggie Flynn
Cara continued acting, composing and recording and performing in concerts,
especially in Europe. But for the past decade,
Cara has all but disappeared from view. She may have been out of sight, but she
continued making music. Cara has a two-volume album out, "Irene Cara
Presents Hot Caramel," and is planning a 20-city tour for next year,
including a stop in Los Angeles.
"For the last 10 years I have been developing a band," she said by
phone from her home in the Tampa
Bay area, one of several
places where she says she lives.
"I really wanted to put all of my energies into my project," she
said. "I wanted to present a super group of extraordinarily talented women
musicians and singers and songwriters. I started searching for really prominent
women artists who were the whole package in my mind."
"Hot Caramel" is a "record for adults, it is not for kids or
teens," said Cara. "There are several tunes that we wrote together
and tracks we wrote separately. The second CD is a lot of jazz and even some
live performances in the studio with the girls just jamming."
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