Tag: fame

Debbie Allen

Deborah Kaye Allen (born January 16, 1950) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director, producer, and a former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She has been nominated 20 times for an Emmy Award (winning five), two Tony Awards, and has also won a Golden Globe Award and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991.

Allen is best known for her work in the musical-drama television series Fame (1982–⁠1987), where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series’ principal choreographer. For this role in 1983 she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography and was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Allen later began working as director and producer, most notably producing and directing 83 of 144 episodes of NBC comedy series A Different World (1988–⁠1993). She returned to acting playing the leading role in the NBC sitcom In the House from 1995 to 1996, and in 2011 began playing Dr. Catherine Avery in the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy also serving as an executive producer/director. She has directed more than 50 television and film productions.

In 2001, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, where she currently teaches young dancers. She also taught choreography to former Los Angeles Lakers dancer-turned-singer, Paula Abdul. She is the younger sister of actress/director/singer Phylicia Rashad.

Born in Houston, TX, her father was a full-blooded Native American (Cherokee). She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors from Howard University. Allen began her career on Broadway in the 1970s in the chorus of “Purlie,” “A Raisin In the Sun,” “West Side Story,” and “Anita,” which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. She is probably best known for her role as Lydia Grant in the 1982 TV show Fame.

She was also a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

In 1988, she choreographed “Carrie” with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Allen has worked on TV’s “Good Times,” “The Love Boat,” “The Cosby Show,” “Touched By An Angel,” and “The Division.” “Fame” gave Allen international prominence.

Its popularity in the United Kingdom prompted a special cast tour in England. While still a cast member of “Fame,” she became the first African American woman hired by a television network as a director in prime time. In 1989, after directing episodes of “Fame,” she co-wrote, produced, directed, choreographed, and starred in “The Debbie Allen Special” for ABC. She received two Emmy nominations for the direction and choreography of this variety show. She also produced and directed “A Different World.”

In 1989, Allen directed a remake of the 1960 film “Pollyanna.” She also directed the sequel “Polly: Comin’ Home” in 1990, “Stompin At The Savoy,” “The Old Settler,” and was the producer of the 1997 film “Amistad.” Allen, the sister of actress Phylicia Rashad, has been married twice: to Win Wilford from 1975 to 1983 and former NBA star Norman Nixon in 1984. They have two children Written

by Dianne Washington

Gene Anthony Ray

Gene Anthony Ray (May 24, 1962 – November 14, 2003) was an American actor, dancer, and choreographer. He was known for his portrayal of dancer Leroy Johnson in both the 1980 film Fame and the 1982–1987 Fame television series based upon the film.

Born in Harlem, New York, on May 24, 1962, Ray grew up in the neighborhood of West 153rd Street. He began performing early in life, street dancing at block parties. He performed in a dance class at the Julia Richman High School; he skipped school one day to audition for Fame choreographer, Louis Falco.

Ray attended the New York High School of the Performing Arts, the inspiration for the film Fame, but was kicked out after one year. “It was too disciplined for this wild child of mine,” Ray’s mother, Jean E. Ray, said.

Ray won the part of Leroy Johnson in the film Fame, which was released in 1980. Much like his Fame character, Ray had little professional training, but he possessed a raw talent that won him his role for the film. Reports USA Today: “Alan (Parker, the director) had to approach him very carefully. His mom was dealing drugs during the filming. It was not pretty.”

In 1981, Ray starred as Friday, alongside Michael York as Robinson Crusoe, in the 1981 TV adventure-comedy Vendredi ou la Vie sauvage [fr] (alternative title: Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday).

Ray also starred in television series based on the film, Fame. The series was produced by MGM Television from 1982 to 1987, and syndicated from 1983 to 1987.

Also in 1982, Ray danced in The Weather Girls’ music video for “Well-A-Wiggy”. Additionally, he began touring the U.K. with the other members of the Fame cast as The Kids from “Fame”; they performed at 10 venues, including a sell out performance at Royal Albert Hall.

In 1984, USA Today reports: “Ray was axed from the show after his mother was jailed for running a drug ring, and he failed to turn up for work 100 times.” He struggled with addictions to alcohol and drugs, and worked only intermittently once the TV series ended.

In 1987, he won the role of Billy Nolan in the ill-fated musical adaptation of Carrie by Stephen King. Ray played the role in the original opening in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which closed after less than a month. He then transferred to Broadway and continued to play the role until the musical closed after only 21 public performances.

Ray also appeared in the 1995 film Out-of-Sync, which was directed by his Fame co-star Debbie Allen, in the 1996 Whoopi Goldberg comedy Eddie (for which he was also credited as associate choreographer), as well as in commercials for Dr Pepper and Diet Coke.

His last video project was a one-hour BBC Fame reunion documentary, Fame Remember My Name, taped in Los Angeles in April 2003.

As his Telegraph obituary describes:

“Ray remained a ‘frantic partygoer’ with a self-confessed weakness for drink and drugs. As his life fell apart, he slept on park benches, and during a failed attempt to launch a Fame-style dance school in Milan, shared a flat there with a porn actress. In 1996 he was diagnosed HIV positive. He suffered a stroke in 2003.

“Flamboyantly camp, he brushed aside questions about his sexuality. He never married.”

In 2001, Marco Papa, an Italian artist, tried to trace Gene Anthony Ray to involve him in his art project Dancing on the Verge, a research between success and failure. The result of their professional and human relationship was documented by drawings, sculptures, installations video and multimedia performances, and collected in the book entitled Dancing on the Verge, published by Charta, which testifies to their path until the death of Ray.

Written by Dianne Washington

Irene Cara

Irene Cara (born Irene Cara Escalera; March 18, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is best known for her roles as title character Sparkle Williams in the 1976 film Sparkle and Coco Hernandez in the 1980 film Fame, earning her a Golden Globe nomination, and her recording of the song “Fame” became an international hit. Cara won an Academy Award in 1984 in the category of Best Original Song for co-writing “Flashdance… What a Feeling”, which also became an international hit.Cara was born in The Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Escalera, a factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Afro-Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise, a cinema usher, was an American of Cuban descent. Cara has two sisters and two brothers.At the age of three, Irene Cara was one of five finalists for the “Little Miss America” pageant. She began to play the piano by ear, then studied music, acting, and dance seriously, first having dance lessons, aged five. Her performing career started on Spanish-language television, professionally singing and dancing. She made early TV appearances on the Original Amateur Hour (singing in Spanish) and Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show. In 1971–72, aged 13, she was a regular on PBS’s educational program The Electric Company. As a child, Cara recorded a Latin-market Spanish-language record and an English Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington that also featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Roberta Flack.Cara appeared in on-and off-Broadway theatrical shows including the musicals Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Me Nobody Knows (which won an Obie Award), Maggie Flynn opposite Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, and Via Galactica with Raúl Juliá.Cara was the original Daisy Allen on the 1970s daytime serial Love of Life. Next came her role as Angela in romance/thriller Aaron Loves Angela, followed by her portrayal of the title character in Sparkle. Television brought Cara international acclaim for serious dramatic roles in two outstanding mini-series, Roots: The Next Generations and Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.John Willis’ Screen World, Vol. 28, named her one of twelve “Promising New Actors of 1976”; that same year, a readers’ poll in Right On! magazine named her Top Actress.Cara graduated from the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan.The 1980 hit movie Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Irene Cara to stardom. Cara was originally 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. As Coco Hernandez, she sang both the title song “Fame” and the film’s other single, “Out Here on My Own.” These songs helped make the film’s soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. Further history was made at the Academy Awards that year: it was the first time two songs from the same film were nominated in the same category and both sung by the same artist. Thus, Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; “Fame,” written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award that year.Cara earned Grammy 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, while 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 so as to focus her attention on her recording career. As a result, Erica Gimpel assumed the role.Cara was slated to star in her own sitcom, Irene, on NBC in 1981. Even though the pilot aired and received favorable reviews, the network did not pick it up for its fall season. It also starred veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson, as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans.In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film D.C. Cab, which is a film about a group of cabbies. The movie stars Mr. T. One of the characters, Tyrone played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her. Her contribution to the film’s soundtrack, “The Dream (Hold on To Your Dream)” played over the closing credits of the film, and proved to be 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, Maya Angelou’s Sister, Sister. Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story; and earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982’s Killing ’em Softly.In addition to her music and film work, Cara also continued to perform in live theatre during this period. In the summer of 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in The Wiz on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had first 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 Civil War orphans.In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie Flashdance: “Flashdance… What A Feeling”, which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara penned 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 further comparisons with another artist who worked with Moroder, Donna Summer. But the collaboration paid off and became a hit in several countries, garnering numerous accolades for Cara. She won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Song (Oscar), 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.”Flashdance…” was re-recorded by Cara twice. The first time was in 1995 as a track in the original soundtrack for the movie “The Full Monty”; the second time was in 2002, as a duet she recorded with Swiss artist DJ BoBo.In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller City Heat, in which she co-starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and sang the standards “Embraceable You” and “Get Happy.” She also co-wrote the theme song “City Heat”, which was sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May of that year she scored her final Top 40 hit with “Breakdance” going to #8. The follow up, “You Were Made for Me” reached #78 that summer but then she never charted on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O’Neal in Certain Fury, an exploitation underachiever about two troubled young women who flee a court hearing and are mistaken for killers. 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. That same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in the record-breaking anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar opposite Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.Along with her career in acting and hit singles, Cara released several albums: Anyone Can See in 1982, What A Feelin’ in 1983, and Carasmatic in 1987, the most successful of these being What A Feelin. In 1985 she collaborated with the Hispanic group Hermanos in the song “Cantaré, cantarás,” in which she sings a solo segment with the Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo. She also released a compilation of Eurodance singles in the mid to late 1990s entitled Precarious 90’s. Cara recently contributed a dance single, titled “Forever My Love”, to the compilation album titled Gay Happening Vol. 12, in 2006.Cara has also worked as a backup vocalist for Vicki Sue Robinson, Lou Reed, George Duke, Oleta Adams, and Evelyn “Champagne” King. Cara toured Europe and Asia throughout the 1990s, scoring several modest dance hits on European charts, but no US chart hits. Cara received two prestigious honors for her career in March 2004, with her induction into the Ciboney Cafe’s Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards.In June 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, performing “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” and covered Anastacia’s song “I’m Outta Love” with her current all-female band, Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.As of 2016, Cara divides her residence between New Port Richey, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She works with her band Hot Caramel, which she formed in 1999. Their album called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel was released on April 4, 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT’s reality show Gone Country,.Cara married stuntman Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles in April 1986 and they divorced in 1991.In March 2004, Cara received two honors with an induction into the Ciboney Cafe’s Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards. In June 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, performing “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” and covered Anastacia’s song “I’m Outta Love” with her current all-female band, Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.In 2006, Cara contributed a dance single, titled “Forever My Love”, to the compilation album titled Gay Happening Vol. 12.As of 2016, Cara divided her residence between New Port Richey, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She works with her band Hot Caramel, which she formed in 1999. Their album called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel was released on April 4, 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT’s reality show Gone Country.On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Irene Cara among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Written by Dianne Washington

Irene Cara

Irene Cara (born Irene Cara Escalera; March 18, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is best known for her roles as title character Sparkle Williams in the 1976 film Sparkle and Coco Hernandez in the 1980 film Fame, earning her a Golden Globe nomination, and her recording of the song “Fame” became an international hit. Cara won an Academy Award in 1984 in the category of Best Original Song for co-writing “Flashdance… What a Feeling”, which also became an international hit.

Cara was born in The Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Escalera, a factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Afro-Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise, a cinema usher, was an American of Cuban descent. Cara has two sisters and two brothers.

At the age of three, Irene Cara was one of five finalists for the “Little Miss America” pageant. She began to play the piano by ear, then studied music, acting, and dance seriously, first having dance lessons, aged five. Her performing career started on Spanish-language television, professionally singing and dancing. She made early TV appearances on the Original Amateur Hour (singing in Spanish) and Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show. In 1971–72, aged 13, she was a regular on PBS’s educational program The Electric Company. As a child, Cara recorded a Latin-market Spanish-language record and an English Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington that also featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Roberta Flack.

Cara appeared in on-and off-Broadway theatrical shows including the musicals Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Me Nobody Knows (which won an Obie Award), Maggie Flynn opposite Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, and Via Galactica with Raúl Juliá.

Cara was the original Daisy Allen on the 1970s daytime serial Love of Life. Next came her role as Angela in romance/thriller Aaron Loves Angela, followed by her portrayal of the title character in Sparkle. Television brought Cara international acclaim for serious dramatic roles in two outstanding mini-series, Roots: The Next Generations and Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones.

John Willis’ Screen World, Vol. 28, named her one of twelve “Promising New Actors of 1976”; that same year, a readers’ poll in Right On! magazine named her Top Actress.

Cara graduated from the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan.

The 1980 hit movie Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Irene Cara to stardom. Cara was originally 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. As Coco Hernandez, she sang both the title song “Fame” and the film’s other single, “Out Here on My Own.” These songs helped make the film’s soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. Further history was made at the Academy Awards that year: it was the first time two songs from the same film were nominated in the same category and both sung by the same artist. Thus, Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; “Fame,” written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award that year.

Cara earned Grammy 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, while 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 so as to focus her attention on her recording career. As a result, Erica Gimpel assumed the role.

Cara was slated to star in her own sitcom, Irene, on NBC in 1981. Even though the pilot aired and received favorable reviews, the network did not pick it up for its fall season. It also starred veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson, as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans.

In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film D.C. Cab, which is a film about a group of cabbies. The movie stars Mr. T. One of the characters, Tyrone played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her. Her contribution to the film’s soundtrack, “The Dream (Hold on To Your Dream)” played over the closing credits of the film, and proved to be 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, Maya Angelou’s Sister, Sister. Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story; and earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982’s Killing ’em Softly.

In addition to her music and film work, Cara also continued to perform in live theatre during this period. In the summer of 1980, she briefly played the role of Dorothy in The Wiz on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had first 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 Civil War orphans.

In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie Flashdance: “Flashdance… What A Feeling”, which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara penned 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 further comparisons with another artist who worked with Moroder, Donna Summer. But the collaboration paid off and became a hit in several countries, garnering numerous accolades for Cara. She won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Song (Oscar), 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.

“Flashdance…” was re-recorded by Cara twice. The first time was in 1995 as a track in the original soundtrack for the movie “The Full Monty”; the second time was in 2002, as a duet she recorded with Swiss artist DJ BoBo.

In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller City Heat, in which she co-starred opposite Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and sang the standards “Embraceable You” and “Get Happy.” She also co-wrote the theme song “City Heat”, which was sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May of that year she scored her final Top 40 hit with “Breakdance” going to #8. The follow up, “You Were Made for Me” reached #78 that summer but then she never charted on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O’Neal in Certain Fury, an exploitation underachiever about two troubled young women who flee a court hearing and are mistaken for killers. 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. That same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in the record-breaking anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar opposite Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.

Along with her career in acting and hit singles, Cara released several albums: Anyone Can See in 1982, What A Feelin’ in 1983, and Carasmatic in 1987, the most successful of these being What A Feelin. In 1985 she collaborated with the Hispanic group Hermanos in the song “Cantaré, cantarás,” in which she sings a solo segment with the Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo. She also released a compilation of Eurodance singles in the mid to late 1990s entitled Precarious 90’s. Cara recently contributed a dance single, titled “Forever My Love”, to the compilation album titled Gay Happening Vol. 12, in 2006.

Cara has also worked as a backup vocalist for Vicki Sue Robinson, Lou Reed, George Duke, Oleta Adams, and Evelyn “Champagne” King. Cara toured Europe and Asia throughout the 1990s, scoring several modest dance hits on European charts, but no US chart hits. Cara received two prestigious honors for her career in March 2004, with her induction into the Ciboney Cafe’s Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards.

In June 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, performing “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” and covered Anastacia’s song “I’m Outta Love” with her current all-female band, Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.

As of 2016, Cara divides her residence between New Port Richey, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She works with her band Hot Caramel, which she formed in 1999. Their album called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel was released on April 4, 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT’s reality show Gone Country,.

Cara married stuntman Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles in April 1986 and they divorced in 1991.

Written by Dianne Washington