TV/Film

Gene Cipriano, the always busy woodwind player who soloed on tenor sax for Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot and recorded with everyone from Miles Davis, Rosemary Clooney and Frank Sinatra to Glen Campbell, Paul McCartney and Olivia Newton-John, has died. He was 94.
Cipriano died Nov. 12 of natural causes at his home in Studio City, his son Paul told The Hollywood Reporter.

Perhaps the most recorded woodwind player in show business history, Cipriano played soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones, all the clarinets and flutes, the oboe and bass oboe, the piccolo and the English horn.

Affectionally known as “Cip,” the session musician performed as a member of the Academy Awards Orchestra in the neighborhood of 60 times since 1958. (At the 1977 show, he exchanged “yo’s” with Barbra Streisand, who had just arrived at the podium after having won for “Evergreen.”) 

Cipriano on oboe is heard at the start of Sinatra’s melancholy “It Was a Very Good Year,” and he performed on several of Campbell’s early hits, including “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”  

Like Campbell, he was an occasional member of The Wrecking Crew, the fabled set of studio musicians who recorded with the likes of The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra and Sonny & Cher.

“It was a lot of fun because a lot of times the composer would say to the rhythm section, ‘Think of something wild that would fit this particular piece of music,’” Cipriano recalled in a 2019 interview for the website Making Life Swing. “They would think of something and then they’d ad lib and tell us what to play. Sometimes we’d make up music right on the spot.”

Shortly after moving from New York to California in the 1950s, Cipriano was hired by Henry Mancini to play flute on the new NBC crime series Peter Gunn. The pair then collaborated on CBS’ Mr. Lucky and in films including The Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Hatari! (1962), Charade (1963) and The Hawaiians (1970).

Cipriano worked alongside Johnny Mandel on The Sandpiper (1965) and with Michel Legrand on The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and was heard on West Side Story (1961), Cleopatra (1963), The Americanization of Emily (1964), Point Blank (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), The French Connection (1971), Marathon Man (1976), One From the Heart (1981), The Karate Kid (1984), Up (2009) and more.

Born on July 6, 1928, in New Haven, Connecticut, Cipriano started taking clarinet lessons from his father, Fred, who played on Broadway and with the New Haven Symphony.

“He put a clarinet in my hands when I was 8 years old,” he said. “I began to listen to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

As a junior in high school, Cipriano landed a gig with Ted Fio Rito’s orchestra, where he met trumpeter Doc Severinsen. After he finished school, he worked with Clooney and her sister Betty in The Tony Pastor Band, with pianist Mancini in The Tex Beneke Band and with singer Frances Irvin, his soon-to-be wife, in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.

After he relocated to California, Mancini gave him his big break on Peter Gunn. “That got me started because it became such a hot item and then all the other leaders said, ‘Well, get me those guys who played with Henry Mancini,’” he noted in another 2019 interview.

Cipriano also performed on Elvis Presley’s NBC comeback special in 1968. Over the years, he recorded with Shorty Rogers, Harry Nilsson, Neil Diamond, Thelonious Monk, Elton John, Frank Zappa, Gerry Mulligan, Helen Reddy, Barry Manilow and Seth MacFarlane. He also played on many Emmy and Grammy telecasts.

In 2006, Cipriano recorded his own CD, First Time Out, a collection of jazz tunes.

In addition to his son Paul, survivors include his other children, Genie, Suzanne and Fred; grandchildren Grant and Alicia; great-grandchildren Natalie and Emily; and sister Marie.

His wife of 43 years, Frances, died in 1996. Four years later, Cipriano met singer Catherine “Cat” Conner, and they performed all over Los Angeles in a small band. She cared for him until his death.

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.

Oscar, Golden Globe and two-time Grammy winning singer-actress Irene Cara, who starred and sang the title cut from the 1980 hit movie Fame and then belted out the era-defining hit “Flashdance … What a Feeling” from 1983′s Flashdance, has died. She was 63.

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Her publicist, Judith A. Moose, announced the news on social media, writing that a cause of death was “currently unknown.” Moose also confirmed the death to an Associated Press reporter on Saturday (Nov. 26). Cara died at her home in Florida. The exact day of her death was not disclosed.

“Irene’s family has requested privacy as they process their grief,” Moose wrote. “She was a beautifully gifted soul whose legacy will live forever through her music and films.”

This is the absolute worst part of being a publicist. I can’t believe I’ve had to write this, let alone release the news. Please share your thoughts and memories of Irene. I’ll be reading each and every one of them and know she’ll be smiling from Heaven. She adored her fans. – JM pic.twitter.com/TsC5BwZ3fh— Irene Cara (@Irene_Cara) November 26, 2022

During her career, Cara had three Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Breakdance,” “Out Here On My Own,” “Fame” and “Flashdance … What A Feeling,” which spent six weeks at No. 1. She was behind some of the most joyful, high-energy pop anthems of the early ’80s.

She first came to prominence among the young actors playing performing arts high schoolers in Alan Parker’s Fame, with co-stars Debbie Allen, Paul McCrane and Anne Mear. Cara played Coco Hernandez, a striving dancer who endures all manner of deprivations, including a creepy nude photo shoot.

“How bright our spirits go shooting out into space, depends on how much we contributed to the earthly brilliance of this world. And I mean to be a major contributor!” she says in the movie.

Cara sang on the soaring title song with the chorus — “Remember my name/I’m gonna live forever/I’m gonna learn how to fly/I feel it coming together/People will see me and cry” — which would go on to be nominated for an Academy Award for best original song. She also sang on “Out Here on My Own,” “Hot Lunch Jam” and “I Sing the Body Electric.”

Three years later, she and the songwriting team of Flashdance — music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Keith Forsey and Cara — was accepting the Oscar for best original song for “Flashdance … What a Feeling.”

The movie starred Jennifer Beals as a steel-town girl who dances in a bar at night and hopes to attend a prestigious dance conservatory. It included the hit song “Maniac,” featuring Beals’ character leaping, spinning, stomping her feet and the slow-burning theme song.

“There aren’t enough words to express my love and my gratitude,” Cara told the Oscar crowd in her thanks. “And last but not least, a very special gentlemen who I guess started it all for me many years ago. To Alan Parker, wherever you may be tonight, I thank him.”

The New York-born Cara began her career on Broadway, with small parts in short-lived shows, although a musical called The Me Nobody Knows ran over 300 performances. She toured in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar as Mary Magdalene in the mid-1990s and a tour of the musical Flashdance toured 2012-14 with her songs.

She also created the all-female band Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel and put out a double CD with the single “How Can I Make You Luv Me.” Her movie credits include Sparkle and D.C. Cab.