Harry Connick Jr.

Harry Connick Jr. has spent decades making excessive talent look suspiciously effortless. Put him in front of a piano and he can play jazz. Give him an orchestra and he'll arrange it. Hand him a microphone and he'll sing. Give him a movie script and he'll act. Put him on Broadway and he'll earn Tony nominations. Sit him behind the judges' table on American Idol and he'll start explaining music theory to contestants who were probably hoping somebody would simply tell them they sounded terrific. Harry Connick Jr. didn't so much choose a branch of entertainment as climb the entire tree.

Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. was born on September 11, 1967, in New Orleans, Louisiana, a city that would profoundly shape his music, personality and career. His parents, Anita Frances Livingston and Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Sr., were both lawyers, and his father served for decades as the district attorney of Orleans Parish.

Music was deeply embedded in family life. His parents also owned a record store, exposing young Harry and his sister Suzanna to an enormous variety of music. Growing up in New Orleans provided something even more valuable: access to one of America's richest musical traditions.

Connick didn't merely listen.

He started learning piano when he was three.

By five, he was performing publicly.

At an age when many children are still discovering that crayons shouldn't be eaten, Harry Connick Jr. was already beginning a professional relationship with a piano that would last a lifetime.

New Orleans provided an extraordinary classroom. Connick absorbed jazz from musicians around the city and studied with some formidable teachers. One was Ellis Marsalis Jr., pianist and patriarch of the extraordinary Marsalis musical family. Another influence was the eccentric and brilliant New Orleans pianist James Booker.

Booker was hardly a conventional piano instructor. He was a legendary musician whose life was as colorful and unpredictable as his playing. Young Connick was nevertheless able to observe him closely in clubs, soaking up techniques and musical ideas that simply couldn't be learned from a textbook.

Connick's childhood performances became increasingly impressive. He played with professional musicians while still a boy and recorded an album while very young. New Orleans had a tradition of allowing talented youngsters to sit in with experienced musicians, and Connick benefited enormously from it.

Rather than treating jazz as something preserved behind glass, he learned it as a living language.

He also studied classical piano, including time at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and a summer program at Tanglewood. The combination gave him an unusually broad musical foundation. Connick wasn't simply learning songs. He was learning harmony, arranging, improvisation, composition and the mechanics behind the music.

At 18, he moved to New York City.

That is generally the point in an aspiring musician's biography where the words "years of struggle followed." Connick certainly worked his way through clubs and developed his reputation, but success arrived relatively quickly. Columbia Records signed him, and his self-titled instrumental album Harry Connick Jr. appeared in 1987.

The following year brought 20, which incorporated vocals and offered a clearer glimpse of the performer the wider public would soon recognize.

Then Harry met Sally.

Not literally, of course.

In 1989, director Rob Reiner asked Connick to provide music for When Harry Met Sally..., starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The romantic comedy became enormously popular, and Connick's soundtrack introduced his voice and piano playing to an audience far beyond the jazz clubs.

The soundtrack included standards such as It Had to Be You, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off and Don't Get Around Much Anymore. Connick's interpretations drew inevitable comparisons with Frank Sinatra because here was a handsome young singer fronting a big band and performing standards at a time when popular music was dominated by considerably different sounds.

Connick has always been careful about the Sinatra comparison. He greatly admired Sinatra but approached the music from the perspective of a New Orleans jazz musician rather than attempting to impersonate him.

The distinction mattered.

Connick wasn't merely a singer standing in front of musicians. He was a pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader who understood what was happening throughout the ensemble. His musical sophistication became an important part of his identity.

When Harry Met Sally... became his commercial breakthrough and earned Connick his first Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male.

Suddenly jazz had a young star who could sell records to people who might not ordinarily have wandered anywhere near the jazz section of a record store.

Connick followed with We Are in Love, which brought another Grammy Award. Over the years, he moved comfortably among jazz, big-band music, traditional pop, funk, original compositions, instrumental recordings, Christmas music and interpretations of the Great American Songbook.

His recording career grew enormous.

Albums such as Blue Light, Red Light, When My Heart Finds Christmas, Come by Me, Only You and Songs I Heard became major successes. When My Heart Finds Christmas, released in 1993, became particularly enduring, establishing Connick as a fixture of holiday music.

This is one of the curious hazards of recording a successful Christmas album. For several weeks every year, your younger self suddenly emerges from speakers in shopping centers, living rooms and supermarkets while people argue over wrapping paper.

Connick ultimately accumulated three Grammy Awards from sixteen nominations, including wins for When Harry Met Sally..., We Are in Love and Songs I Heard.

Music alone would have provided a perfectly respectable career.

Harry apparently found that insufficient.

His first substantial film role came in the 1990 World War II drama Memphis Belle, in which he played Staff Sergeant Clay Busby, a crew member aboard an American B-17 bomber. The ensemble cast included Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Billy Zane and Sean Astin.

It was not a vanity appearance by a singer hoping somebody might notice him standing near the camera. Connick demonstrated genuine acting ability and continued pursuing film roles.

In 1995, he took a decidedly darker turn in Copycat, starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. Connick played serial killer Daryll Lee Cullum.

For audiences accustomed to the smiling pianist singing romantic standards, the transformation was unsettling.

Apparently the fellow who could croon It Had to Be You could also make you seriously reconsider opening the front door.

The following year brought one of his largest films, Independence Day. Connick played Captain Jimmy Wilder, friend and fellow Marine pilot of Will Smith's Captain Steven Hiller.

Jimmy's prospects were unfortunately limited by the arrival of enormous alien spacecraft intent upon destroying civilization.

This was an important lesson in Hollywood career management: if Will Smith is flying beside you in an action movie and you are the funny best friend, check your life insurance.

Connick's film career continued to expand, but one of his most popular roles arrived in 1998 with Hope Floats. He starred opposite Sandra Bullock as Justin Matisse, an old friend who becomes romantically involved with Bullock's character, Birdee Pruitt, after her marriage collapses.

The role suited Connick's relaxed charm and helped establish him as a romantic leading man rather than simply "the musician appearing in movies."

He went on to appear in an impressively varied collection of films including The Iron Giant, in which he voiced Dean McCoppin, Basic, P.S. I Love You, New in Town, Dolphin Tale, Dolphin Tale 2 and Bug.

Bug, directed by William Friedkin and co-starring Ashley Judd, was particularly far removed from the warmth of Hope Floats. The disturbing psychological horror film gave Connick another opportunity to demonstrate that audiences shouldn't become too comfortable predicting what sort of character he would play next.

That versatility also extended to television.

Connick became a recurring presence on Will & Grace as Dr. Leo Markus, the charming physician who becomes Grace Adler's husband. The role introduced him to another enormous television audience and demonstrated a natural ability with sitcom comedy.

Then came American Idol.

Connick initially appeared as a mentor, bringing something rather unusual to the program: a willingness to discuss the technical foundations of music instead of merely telling contestants to "make the song their own."

Eventually he became a full-time judge alongside Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban for Seasons 13 through 15.

Connick approached judging as a musician and teacher. He discussed pitch, phrasing, harmony, rhythm and interpretation, sometimes delivering impromptu lessons in music theory.

One occasionally suspected that somewhere backstage a contestant was frantically Googling "What is a diminished seventh?"

His presence brought a mixture of humor and musical seriousness to the show. Connick could tease contestants and fellow judges, but he also emphasized musicianship, preparation and education.

After American Idol, Connick moved into daytime television with Harry, a syndicated talk and variety show launched in 2016. The program combined celebrity interviews, comedy and music, with Connick's touring musicians serving as the house band.

The show ran for two seasons and earned eleven Daytime Emmy nominations, including nominations for Connick as host.

And then, of course, there is Broadway.

Because apparently music, movies and television weren't enough.

Connick composed the music and wrote lyrics for the Broadway musical Thou Shalt Not, based on Émile Zola's novel Thérèse Raquin. Although the production itself received mixed reviews, Connick's score earned him a Tony Award nomination.

He later stepped onto the Broadway stage as a performer in the 2006 revival of The Pajama Game, starring opposite Kelli O'Hara. His performance as Sid Sorokin earned another Tony nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Musical.

That is a particularly neat illustration of his range: Tony-nominated for writing a Broadway score and then Tony-nominated for starring in somebody else's musical.

He later returned to Broadway with concerts and theatrical productions celebrating his music and the Great American Songbook, including Harry Connick Jr. — A Celebration of Cole Porter. For that production, Connick didn't merely sing Porter's songs. He wrote arrangements and orchestrations and directed the show.

There is a point at which "control freak" and "extraordinarily accomplished musician" begin sharing office space.

New Orleans, meanwhile, remained much more than Connick's birthplace.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005, Connick became deeply involved in recovery efforts. He was among the prominent voices drawing attention to the destruction and the needs of residents.

With fellow musician Branford Marsalis, he helped conceive Musicians' Village, a project developed with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity to provide homes for musicians and other displaced residents.

At the center of the community is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, named for Connick and Marsalis' influential teacher. The center provides musical education, performances and community programs.

For Connick, preserving New Orleans music wasn't simply about protecting an artistic tradition. It meant helping the people who create that tradition remain part of the city.

His work on behalf of New Orleans became one of the most significant aspects of his career away from entertainment.

Connick has continued moving between mediums rather than settling comfortably into any one of them. In 2021, he played Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks in NBC's live television production of Annie. He later became a judge on the revived Australian Idol, bringing his familiar combination of humor and serious musicianship to another generation of performers.

In 2024, he starred in the romantic comedy Find Me Falling, filmed in Cyprus. Connick played John Allman, an aging rock star who retreats to a cliffside house following the failure of his comeback album, only to discover that escaping one's problems is considerably more difficult when the plot of a romantic comedy has followed you overseas.

The film also allowed him to combine acting and music again, with Connick writing and performing original songs for the production.

That ability to combine disciplines has characterized virtually his entire career.

Harry Connick Jr. isn't an actor who also happens to sing. He isn't a singer who occasionally sits at a piano. He isn't a pianist who somehow acquired a movie career.

He is fundamentally a musician whose understanding of performance has allowed him to move convincingly into other forms of entertainment.

And underneath the polished suits, romantic films and television appearances remains the New Orleans pianist who learned his craft by sitting near musicians such as James Booker and Ellis Marsalis.

The city gave him his musical vocabulary. Hollywood gave him cameras. Broadway gave him a stage. Television gave him a judges' desk. And apparently nobody has yet found the good sense to ask him whether there is anything he can't do, because there is every possibility he'll take it as a challenge.