- Born
- Birth nameJoseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr.
- Nickname
- The Vice-Chairman of the Board
- Height6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
- Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the son of Anita Frances (Levy), a lawyer and judge, and Harry Connick, Sr. (Joseph Harry Fowler Connick), who served as District Attorney of New Orleans from 1973 to 2003. His father is of Irish, English, and German ancestry, and his maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Vienna, Austria and Minsk, Belarus. Harry, Jr.'s mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 13.
His parents owned a record store and encouraged their son's interest in music - piano at age three, with a New Orleans jazz band aged ten. He won piano competitions while playing French Quarter clubs and attending the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. At eighteen, he studied at New York's Hunter College and later on at the Manhatan School of Music. At nineteen, he released his first album for Columbia Records and began an extended run performing at the Algonquin's Oak Room, followed a year later by his second album. He wrote the score and sang several songs for Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989), the soundtrack for which went multi-platinum. So far, while bringing back swing and big band music, he has earned one gold, four platinum and three multi-platinum albums, plus two Grammies. His film acting debut was as B-17 tail-gunner Clay Busby in Memphis Belle (1990). He played mass-murderer Daryll Lee Cullum in the Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter film Copycat (1995) and Captain Jimmy Wilder ("Let's kick the tires and light the fires, big daddy!") in Independence Day (1996).
Harry lives in Connecticut, is married to the former model Jill Goodacre, and has three daughters, Georgia Tatom, Sara Kate and Charlotte.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
- SpouseJill Goodacre(April 16, 1994 - present) (3 children)
- Children
- ParentsAnita Frances Connick (Levy)
- Jazzy style of singing
- Rich mellow voice
- Gave up smoking at the insistence of Mel Tormé.
- Because of his style of singing, so similar to Frank Sinatra, he was given the nickname "The Vice-Chairman of the Board". Sinatra had nothing but praise for Connick, and referred to him simply as The Kid.
- Attended Jesuit High School, an all-boys school in New Orleans.
- While still in school, he began taking classes at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts with renown New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis, father of famous jazz musicians Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason.
- Three daughters: Georgia Connick (b. 1996), Kate Connick (b. September 1997) and Charlotte Connick (b. June 26, 2002).
- I had an old man moment the other day. I went into Abercrombie & Fitch to get some jeans and the music was so loud I couldn't stay.
- [on researching his role for Dolphin Tale (2011)] I was just blown away by the humanity of these people. I did some research and found out about what these marine biologists go through, and it's deep, man. One veterinarian I talked to said to me, "Yeah, if that dolphin were brought here to me, I would have euthanized it 'cause there's a million out there, and we need that money for endangered animals." It's a pretty hard decision to make. When you have a limited amount of money, do you spend all of it on developing a prosthetic for an animal that is not endangered?
- ...my mother, I knew until I was 13. She died when I was 13. She was from New York, a Jewish background, and met my dad when they were working for the government in Morocco. And they got married in 1953, moved back to New Orleans. My dad was from Mobile, Alabama, and then grew up in New Orleans. So they came back to New Orleans. They both were lawyers. And they had a record store in the '50s, about 10 years before I was born, to sort of make money to put themselves through law school. And by the time I came around in '67, they were both practicing law. And my mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person. And my dad, although he was very busy politically, always found the time to support me, to set the right example for me and [my older sister].
- [on The Beatles] That music is for second-graders.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
