Sparkle | movie | 1976 | Official Featurette - video Dailymotion

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Three sisters start out singing in their church choir in Harlem in the late 1950s and become a successful girl group in  | dG1fYU1jaWczRDFwVDg

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00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hello and welcome back to TCM.

00:13 I'm Jacqueline Stewart.

00:14 We are winding down our afternoon now

00:16 with a cult favorite, a musical drama inspired

00:19 by the popular black female singing groups of the 1960s,

00:23 especially Diana Ross and the Supremes.

00:25 From 1976, the movie is "Sparkle."

00:29 Set in Harlem in the 1950s and 60s,

00:32 the story follows a trio of sisters

00:34 who try to make it big as a singing group,

00:36 despite personal issues that threaten to tear them apart.

00:39 The sisters are played by Lonnette McKee,

00:41 Dwan Smith, and Irene Cara,

00:44 who plays the title character, Sparkle.

00:46 She's the one destined to be the biggest star.

00:50 The cast also includes Mary Alice

00:52 as the matriarch of the family,

00:54 a single mom raising her three daughters.

00:57 Mary Alice had been a school teacher in Chicago

00:59 before she moved to New York

01:01 and began pursuing a second career as an actor

01:03 in the late 1960s.

01:05 In 1987, she won a Tony Award for her performance

01:09 as Rose Maxson, a character she helped create

01:12 in the original Broadway production

01:14 of August Wilson's "Fences."

01:16 She also earned back-to-back Emmy nominations

01:19 in 1992 and 1993.

01:22 "Sparkle" premiered in 1976,

01:24 and years later, Whitney Houston became interested

01:27 in mounting a remake of the film.

01:29 But it took more than a decade

01:31 to get that production off the ground.

01:33 When Houston finally produced her remake in 2012,

01:36 she stepped into the role Mary Alice had played

01:38 as the girl's mother.

01:40 It turned out to be Whitney Houston's final movie role.

01:44 From 1976, also featuring future "Miami Vice" star,

01:48 Philip Michael Thomas, as well as a soundtrack

01:50 written and produced by the great Curtis Mayfield,

01:53 here is "Sparkle."

01:55 The songs in "Sparkle" were written by Curtis Mayfield,

01:59 one of the most important soul singers and songwriters

02:02 of the 1960s and '70s.

02:04 The movie's soundtrack was a hit when it was released,

02:07 with Mayfield's songs performed and recorded

02:09 by none other than Aretha Franklin.

02:12 But in the film, the actors did their own singing,

02:14 including Lonnette McKee.

02:17 McKee had gotten her start working in the music industry

02:20 in Detroit when she was a child.

02:22 Irene Cara, who played Sparkle,

02:24 was just 16 years old at the time,

02:26 but already a seasoned musical performer.

02:29 Within a few years, Cara was belting out the title tracks

02:32 of two of the most popular movie musicals of the 1980s,

02:36 "Flashdance" and "Fame."

02:38 "Fame" was released in 1980,

02:40 and Cara also starred in the film as Coco Hernandez,

02:44 one of the students at the Performing Arts High School

02:46 in New York.

02:47 Three years later, she sang and also co-wrote the song

02:50 "Flashdance, What a Feeling."

02:53 It earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe,

02:56 and her vocal performance won her a Grammy.

02:58 Up next, Forrest Whitaker stars

03:02 as jazz legend Charlie "Bird" Parker

03:04 in a biopic from 1988, directed by Clint Eastwood.

03:08 - Next on TCM, Bird, then Lady Sings the Blues,

03:15 and later, Body and Soul.

03:18 TCM goes on with the ma-show tonight.

03:21 (upbeat music)

Sparkle | movie | 1976 | Official Featurette

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