Singing on albums and major talk shows. Working on a Grammy special. Designing a successful fashion
line. There are plenty of perks to being the daughter of a major star like Harry Connick Jr.
Harry Connick Jr. and his wife Jill Goodacre have been married for 28 years, and during that time,
they've raised three daughters together. The girls are all thriving young adults now.
Filmmaker Georgia was born in 1996; middle daughter Sarah, who goes by her middle name Kate,
was born in 1997 and is now a model and fashion designer; and youngest daughter Charlotte
was born in 2002 and is currently a college student. The Connick family is extremely close,
and they all enjoy spending time together. As Kate once shared on an episode of her dad's talk show:
"My favorite thing is when we all go out to dinner and we all have to kind of hold it together
and be a little bit more tame, because we're really bad at that, like something happens."
"There's always some commotion at some point."
Unsurprisingly, the Connick sisters have been exposed to music their entire lives.
Harry hails from New Orleans, and he still has plenty of family there. The
girls primarily grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, but they've also spent a lot
of time in New Orleans as well. Dad's musical pedigree has also meant that
his family has been able to see some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world perform.
For example, when Kate was just six years old, she expressed an interest in learning
to play the trumpet. So her dad called up his pal Wynton Marsalis to give her some pointers.
That might sound like a huge deal, but it wasn't like little Kate actually realized
the enormity of the moment. As her dad revealed to Conway Confidential,
"She had no idea she was being taught by one of the greatest musicians who ever lived."
Harry Connick Jr. has spoken repeatedly about how much he
treasures his relationship with his wife Jill. As he admitted to Fox News in 2018,
"I love being around her, I respect her infinitely, and I admire her so much.
She's a hero of mine. We just take it day to day, and you know, count our blessings really."
His daughters clearly feel similarly about their mom,
as evidenced by a story that Harry shared with Good Housekeeping in 2007. He requested that
the girls do something special for Jill's birthday. So when she arrived at home,
she found dozens of little art pieces that her daughters had made in her honor.
One was particularly touching, as it featured outlines of their hands along with the message:
"When you put your hand on this, it will be like we're holding hands."
In 2012, Jill Goodacre was diagnosed with breast cancer. She then endured
two surgeries, radiation treatment, and five years of medication until she was
finally declared free of the disease. Unsurprisingly, breaking the news to
her three young daughters was heartbreaking and one of the hardest parts of her cancer journey.
The family talked about their cancer experiences during an episode of Harry's talk show. Georgia
shared that she virtually blocked out the memory of being told about the diagnosis
and likened it to a nightmare. Kate talked about how the family had decided to keep it private and
how it had been difficult to be around other people without telling them what she was going
through. And Charlotte looked back on the period as the hardest time of her life. Their lives were
rocked by the incident, and they're extremely grateful that their mom was able to come out the
other side in good health. Harry summed up his thoughts to Parade Magazine in 2019 by noting,
"If we have our health, we need to take a step back and realize
the ability to do our work and live our lives is an incredible gift."
"I'm just so blessed that we have each other."
Georgia Connick has worked with her dad on a few occasions, including on his talk show
Harry. During one episode, she discussed how much she was enjoying the experience. As she put it,
"You deserve the world, and I mean, I love working here. It's truly an honor."
"He does everything for everybody else. He doesn't care about any— anything done for himself."
During a 2021 appearance on The Paul Leslie Hour, Georgia talked about growing up in a household
surrounded by art, music, and creativity. She'd been filming and editing since she was 10 years
old, and she particularly cherished making two music videos with her dad during the pandemic.
They shot "Amazing Grace" in an abandoned opera house and braved the snowy weather for the "Alone
With My Faith" clip. Ultimately, Georgia hopes to travel the world and work on documentaries.
In 2018, Harry Connick Jr. told People Magazine,
"You constantly hear stories about kids who get embarrassed by their parents or daughters who get
embarrassed by their dads… and I’m not saying this to be cool, but we never really got into that."
When his girls were younger, he tried to raise them in a gender-free fashion,
and he enjoyed taking them to get their nails done as much as he liked playing ball with them.
When the whole family was on an episode of Harry, Georgia described her dad as her best friend.
Her sister Kate confirmed the sentiment, while adding that she could expect her dad
to pick up the phone no matter the hour and that she could talk to him about anything.
The Connick sisters are a tight bunch. They're close to their parents and to each other,
as evidenced by how often they show up on each other's Instagrams. Now that Georgia, Kate,
and Charlotte are older, their dad cherishes the fact that they can adjust their schedules to be
with him. As he revealed to People Magazine, they enjoy everyday family activities like going to the
movies, cooking, and hanging out at the beach. He summed up their tight-knit nature by declaring,
"We love being together, so the more we can actually spend time together, the better."
During the pandemic, Kate moved back home along with her sister Georgia,
and in 2021 she told New Canaan Magazine,
"I was a little worried at first about how things would go being back home,
but we are the closest family I've ever met, so I knew it would be ok."
On a 2015 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Harry Connick Jr. eschewed the
outdated concept of a father looming over his daughters' dating lives with a shotgun.
He considers this an antiquated attitude, as he believes that young women can make
good decisions for themselves when it comes to finding a good partner. As he put it,
"The way I raise my daughters and Jill, the way we raise our kids, hopefully they will
have enough self-esteem so that they'll be able to attract guys of a certain caliber."
Connick Jr. takes pride in the fact that he and his wife have instilled
their daughters with self-worth. As he noted to People Magazine,
"The way we raised them was to see these men,
these potential partners through a very small window."
"We've tried our best, we meaning me and my wife Jill, to try to make them understand self-worth."
Harry Connick Jr. isn't the only one in his family with a sweet set of pipes, as Kate has performed
with her dad on several occasions. For example, they sang together on his 2008 Christmas album.
And during a 2011 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she performed "A Lot Like Me," a tune
written by her dad. She recorded the song when she was 13 years old, and it was released along with
the introduction of two new American Girl dolls to raise money for the Ellis Marsalis Music Center in
New Orleans after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. As Kate explained,
"My dad has told me how we needed to get all the musicians back together. We've got
to keep the music going to help New Orleans. When I found out that I'd be able to help,
I wanted to have a part in it."
During the performance, Kate sang lead vocals as her dad accompanied her
on the piano and beamed with pride in the background.
"Kate, how's this piano guy working out for you?"
"Oh, he's doing great."
It should come as no surprise that youngest daughter Charlotte has some serious skills when
it comes to performing. This is particularly clear on some posts on her dad's social media
that feature the two of them engaging in some funny antics. In a May 2020 Facebook video,
for example, he played the piano while she did an impression of his singing. He captioned the post:
"Charlotte thinks I have a strong Louisiana
accent. This is her impression of me. She takes this very seriously."
In the clip, Dad tries desperately to keep it together as Charlotte does a
hilarious riff on his southern twang. Then there was a December 2020 video
on Instagram in which Charlotte flawlessly lip syncs all of the lyrics to a sped-up
version of Young MC's "Bust A Move" as her dad provides back-up. Once again,
Charlotte is perfectly straight-faced until the very end, when they both burst out laughing.
"Yes, hahahaha!"
After Kate Connick graduated from high school, she headed to college in South Carolina to play
lacrosse. But after an injury cut short her playing days, she then headed to New York
University to pursue her dreams of conquering the fashion world. Not only does she now work as
a model, she also has her own fashion line, Kate Connick Clothing, that has grown since the onset
of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's an eco-friendly company that's focused on confidence and comfort
According to Kate, her fashion sense is definitely inspired by her mom,
a former Victoria's Secret model. She originally started her company with
pieces that had a dressier vibe, but the onset of the pandemic inspired her
to move more quickly toward her goal of designing loungewear. Currently,
her clothes can be found in several boutiques near where she lives and even at a resort in Ireland.
She hopes to continue her fashion journey as she also nurtures her acting and modeling careers.
Harry Connick Jr. needed to stay active during the COVID-19 pandemic,
so he and his filmmaker daughter Georgia hit the road in an RV
and set off to interview essential workers. As he explained to Billboard,
"I just want to reach out and meet some of these folks,
sanitation workers or elementary school teachers or people that are working at food banks. These
are the people that are keeping the supply chain going and keeping our lives going."
The project was called United We Sing: A Grammy Tribute to the Unsung Heroes, and it aired in
conjunction with Grammy programming in 2020. In addition to honoring essential workers,
the special featured several movie stars and musical performances by top artists.
One of the goals of the project was to raise money for several causes.
Georgia found it especially moving to watch the frontline
workers do their jobs under such harrowing circumstances. As she put it to Billboard,
"Watching these people do their everyday jobs, not necessarily thinking they're heroes,
but everyone else thinking they are heroes, is very incredible."
As of 2022, Charlotte Connick is currently enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and
Design. On her Instagram, she's shared lots of family photos, outings with college pals,
modeling pics, and some of her own artistic creations.
Charlotte's art ranges from an abstract drawing of a hand to a bright watercolor painting done during
a picnic to a mixed media piece that features a skull. Her bio describes her as a self-taught
make-up designer-slash-artist. Though she's just at the start of her college and creative journey,
Charlotte clearly has talent in several disciplines. If her parents and sisters are
any indication, she will no doubt be blazing her own trail creatively for the foreseeable future!
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