ACTRESS and singer Irene Cara, who helped to define the ‘80s era of legwarmers and leo-tards, has died aged 63.

The Oscar-winning former child star, who belted out the title tracks to films Fame and Flashdance, was found dead at home in Florida.

Appropriately it was the 1980 film Fame that made her a star at 21, playing talented performing arts student Coco Hernandez.

Three years later she had another massive hit, co-writing and performing the movie title song Flash-dance . . . What A Feeling.

It won her the 1983 Best Song Oscar, plus the 1984 Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

Her death was announced last night by her publicist Judith Moose, who said: “It is with profound sadness that on behalf of her family I announce the passing of Irene Cara.

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“Her cause of death is currently unknown and will be released when the information is available.”

She was born Irene Cara Escalera in the Bronx, New York City, in 1959.

The youngest of three children, Irene showed artistic promise from a young age and was soon enrolled in music and acting classes.

She inherited her musical talent from her Puerto Rican father Gaspar Escalera, who she said brought merengue music to the US.

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To pay for her music lessons, her mother Louise worked as a cashier and movie usher — but it was all worth it when Irene released her first record, a Spanish-language album, at the age of eight.

She worked in TV and film throughout her child-hood, then in 1976, when she was 17, she was cast in the title role in Sparkle, a musical drama about three African American sisters who form a singing group in the late 1950s.

After Fame brought her worldwide stardom in 1980 she said: “I left home. I got an apartment near where we were filming. I wanted to be my own woman and all of this.

“I started hanging out in nightclubs, and I was sowing my oats.”
Fame raked in £13million at the box officebefore it became a TV show.

Even Irene was shocked by its impact.

She admitted: “I wasn’t aware it would be what it’s become. I’ve heard of schools in Liverpool that have opened up for the performing arts.

“So many of my fans tell me from all over the country, and all over the world, that they’ve become dancers, choreographers or professionals in the entertainment industry because of the inspiration of that film.”

Three years later, talented Irene co-wrote Flashdance … What a Feeling for the 1983 movie, for which she won an Oscar for best original song and two Grammys.

Friends thought she should have played the lead role of professional ballerina Alex Owens, but Irene insisted: “I’m glad I didn’t get it, because it would have been too similar to Fame.

“I thought Jennifer Beals did a lovely job and I was glad to see another mulatto actress out there and working.”

Jennifer presented her with the Oscar at the 56th Academy Awards, which Irene described as “the most precious honour”.

She married movie stuntman Conrad Palmisano in 1986 at the age of 27 but they divorced five years later.

‘’I knew he was the guy for me when, after a career of jumping off tall buildings and being involved in high-speed car chases, he told me I brought the excitement to his life,’’ she joked at the time.

Cara concentrated on her music career in later life.

In the 1990s she toured the Europen dance scene, releasing a compilation of singles entitled Precarious 90’s.

She went on to form all-woman band Hot Caramel and released a 24-track album in 2011.

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Her Fame co-star Debbie Allen – who also starred in the spin-off TV series – said her heart was “broken” after learning the news.

She wrote on Instagram: “Her talent and her music will Live forever! Forever remember her name.”

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