Irene Cara, Grammy-Winning “Fame” and “Flashdance” Singer, Dead at 63

To quote a legendary lyric from her most famous anthem: “I’m gonna live forever — baby, remember my name.”

Irene Cara, the iconic ’80s singer and actress best known for massive soundtrack hits to the films “Flashdance” and “Fame,” has died. She was 63.

The native New Yorker’s publicist Judith Moose announced Cara’s death Saturday morning, saying in a statement she died in her Florida home. The cause of death is unknown and will be released “when more information is available,” she added.

“She was a beautifully gifted soul whose legacy will live forever through her music and films,” Moose said. “Please share your thoughts and memories of Irene … and know she’ll be smiling from Heaven. She adored her fans.”

She was born Irene Cara Escalera in the Bronx on March 18, 1959, to a Puerto Rican father and Cuban-American mother.

“I don’t mean to sound immodest — but I’d never had any doubt that I’d be successful, nor any fear of success,” the singer-songwriter-actress told Cosmopolitan magazine in 1985. “I was raised as a little goddess who was told she would be a star.”

Cara’s top hits were “Fame” in 1980 and 1983’s “Flashdance … What a Feeling,” the latter of which she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance.

In 1975, Cara made her leading lady film debut in “Aaron Loves Angela,” an inner-city redux of “Romeo and Juliet,” followed by a starring role in 1976’s cult classic girl-group drama “Sparkle,” featuring a soundtrack of iconic Curtis Mayfield tracks.

She followed her early star-making roles with supporting appearances in acclaimed TV productions such as “Roots: The Next Generations” in 1979 and “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” in 1980.

Cara’s acting career floundered after 1984’s “City Heat” with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and was marked by subpar roles in by B-movies such as 1985’s “Certain Fury” opposite Oscar winner Tatum O’Neal and the 1989 women-behind-bars exploitation drama “Caged in Paradiso.”

In recent years she wowed audiences with a series of nostalgic reality TV singing appearances as she attempted to launch a new musical group named Hot Caramel.

Cara is reportedly survived by multiple family members, who have “requested privacy as they process their grief” at this time, according to her reps.

However, the artist herself was known for cherishing her devoted fanbase over her five-decade-plus career: “It’s important for me to get back to my fans here and around the world,” she told Star magazine during one stalled comeback attempt in 1993. “I feel very, very blessed that so many people have continued to write me and to pour out their love for me and my work.”

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