Cara had star billing as Sparkle Williams in the musical film “Sparkle” about a rising “girl group” in Harlem. The film was not a major hit, but gain a strong following among Black audiences and inspir a 2012 remake starring Jordin Sparks and Whitney Houston.
In “Fame,” Ms. Cara was cast as Coco Hernandez, a to go with it.
“So, you like art movies, huh, Coco?” a student asks.
Oh Antonioni and those people
Coco replies. “Sure. I mean it beats watching ‘Laverne and Shirley,’ right?”
Besides the title song, she perform the musical’s other buy phone number list big hit, “Out Here on My Own.” She said that some critics claim she was trying too hard to sound like the disco queen Donna Summer. She found it a compliment.
“Honestly,” she said later, “I made a decision as a young actress to emulate Donna. First of all, we shot some of the ‘Fame’ scenes to her song, ‘Hot Stuff.’ ”
When Paramount Studios contact her for
Flashdance,” the lyrics of the potential signature song were still what is video marketing? a work in progress. Over a few hours one afternoon, she work with drummer and songwriter Keith Forsey to finish the song, which including the lines “now I’m dancing for my life.” The song still didn’t have a name, though.
“We left Paramount after seeing the clips and got in the car,” she told the Associat Press in 1984. “I remember saying to [Forsey], ‘Let’s talk about the feeling of the dance.’ Out of those words and ‘dancing for japan data my life’ came the song, ‘Flashdance … What a Feeling.’ ”
The song l a number of hits from the film, including “Maniac” and “Lady, Lady, Lady.” It became for Ms. Cara “a metaphor about a dancer, how she’s in control of her body when she dances and how she can be in control of her life. The song also earn her two Grammy Awards.