Cara appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, starting with
Maggie Flynn opposite
Shirley Jones and
Jack Cassidy. The 1980 hit film
Fame, directed by
Alan Parker, catapulted Cara to stardom. She originally was 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. In this part, she sang both the title song "
Fame" and the single "
Out Here on My Own", which were both nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song. Cara earned
Grammy Award nominations in 1980 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, as well as a
Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical.
Billboard named her Top New Single Artist, and
Cashbox magazine awarded her both Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist. Asked by
Fame TV series producers to reprise her role as Coco Hernandez, she declined, wanting to focus her attention on her recording career;
Erica Gimpel assumed the role. in the pilot of
Irene, 1981 In 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in
The Wiz on tour, in a role that
Stephanie Mills had portrayed in the original Broadway production. Coincidentally, Cara and Mills had shared the stage together as children in the original 1968 Broadway musical
Maggie Flynn, starring
Shirley Jones and
Jack Cassidy, in which both young girls played
American Civil War orphans. In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film
D.C. Cab. One of the characters, Tyrone, played by
Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his
Checker Cab as a shrine to her. "
The Dream (Hold On to Your Dream)", her contribution to the film's soundtrack, 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
Sister, Sister. Cara portrayed
Myrlie Evers-Williams in
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story, the PBS TV movie about
civil rights leader
Medgar Evers, which she co-wrote with
Giorgio Moroder and
Keith Forsey. Cara wrote the lyrics to the song with Keith Forsey while riding in a car in New York heading to the studio to record it; Moroder composed the music. Cara admitted later that she was initially reluctant to work with Giorgio Moroder because she had no wish to invite comparisons with
Donna Summer, another artist who worked with Moroder. The song became a hit in several countries, attracting several awards for Cara. She shared the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song with Moroder and Forsey, becoming the first black woman to win an Oscar in a non-acting category and the youngest to receive an Oscar for songwriting. She won the 1984
Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, 1984
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and
American Music Awards for Best R&B Female Artist and Best Pop Single of the Year. In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller
City Heat, co-starring with
Clint Eastwood and
Burt Reynolds and singing the standards "
Embraceable You" and "
Get Happy". She also co-wrote the theme song "City Heat", sung by the jazz vocalist
Joe Williams. In May 1984, she scored her final Top 40 hit with "
Breakdance" going to No. 8. "
You Were Made for Me" reached No. 78 that summer, but she did not appear on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with
Tatum O'Neal in
Certain Fury. In 1986, Cara appeared in the film
Busted Up. She also provided the voice of
Snow White in the unofficial sequel to
Disney's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
Filmation's
Happily Ever After, in 1993. The same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in a tour of
Jesus Christ Superstar with
Ted Neeley,
Carl Anderson, and
Dennis DeYoung. Cara released three studio albums:
Anyone Can See in 1982, ''
What a Feelin''' in 1983,
Lou Reed,
Oleta Adams, and
Evelyn "Champagne" King. In 2005, Cara contributed a dance single, titled "Forever My Love", to the compilation album titled
Gay Happening Vol. 12. Cara was in Hot Caramel, a band which she formed in 1999. Their album, called
Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel, was released in 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT's reality show
Gone Country. == Personal life and death ==