Carly Simon

Carly Elisabeth Simon was born in New York City, and was raised in its Riverdale neighborhood, with two sisters and a brother. Her father, Richard L. Simon, co-founded the Simon and Schuster publishing company, and played Chopin and Beethoven on the piano. Her mother, Andrea Louise (Heinemann), was a civil rights and community activist. Her father was from a German Jewish family, while her mother was of German and Cuban (mostly African and Spanish) descent. Carly attended so many Brooklyn Dodgers games with her father that she was made a team mascot before they loved to Los Angeles. She once said if she could see herself in a ballplayer, it would be Pee Wee Reese; a shortstop is not quite in the infield and not quite in the outfield. Three of her uncles gained distinction in various fields of music. George, as an authority on Jazz; Henry, as a Musicologist and book editor; and Alfred, as the music director of a classical radio station. Carly's eldest sister Joanna was a professional opera singer. Carly suffered from severe stage fright and one time passed out and collapsed in the middle of a concert in 1981. She met her first husband... James Taylor...as a child when their parents had summered near one another on Martha's Vineyard. (Taylor's father was director of the UNC Chapel Hill Medical College). She married Taylor in 1971 and they later divorced. She attended Riverdale County School and spent two years at Sarah Lawrence before dropping out to form a folk duo with her sister, Lucy. They billed themselves as the Simon Sisters and managed to get work at small clubs and in coffee houses across the eastern seaboard. Carly even did Al Jolson improvisations. Lucy eventually left the act and married a physician. After an unsuccessful attempt to launch a solo career, Carly burst onto the music scene in 1971 with her first Top 10 hit "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," which won her the Best New Artist Grammy Award and set the stage for an enormously successful career. After her second hit, "Anticipation," Carly roared to the top of the charts with her album No Secrets, and its #1 hit "You're So Vain." Newly married to James Taylor, Carly piled up a series of bestselling albums, including Playing Possum (1975), which featured controversial cover art of a scantily-clad Carly, although there had always been a sort of subtle sexuality on many of her album covers before (and after); however, none were as blatant as this particular one. Her career marched on, and in 1977, Carly performed her first movie-theme, "Nobody Does It Better," from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and it became an international smash. Her sales high continued with 1978's "You Belong To Me" and the album Boys in the Trees, but after the release of her hit "Jesse" in 1980, Carly's career started to wane. Although she released a series of interesting albums in the '80s, none of them were commercial successes. After her divorce from James Taylor, she also retired from performing live. Then in 1987, Carly wrote the theme for Heartburn (1986)- "Coming Around Again" - and her career was revitalized. The song was a big hit and the album of the same name was a best-seller and charted for well over a year. By that point, she was a legend and was then able to release albums at a more relaxed pace, which allowed her to be more adventurous in her writing and creativity. Since then, all of her work has been very well received, most notable "Let The River Run," which she wrote for Working Girl (1988) and won her her first Oscar. Carly's album The Bedroom Tapes (2000) reflected her personal trials more overtly than any of her other albums up to that point, particularly a case of writer's block as well as her breast cancer ordeal and the accompanying depression she experienced due to chemotherapy. Nevertheless, Carly is now healthy and content and remains a notable presence in the media and music industry, including her cameo on Janet Jackson's "Son of a Gun," as well as the televised tribute to Beach Boy Brian Wilson She has been married to writer Jim Hart since 1987 and they live on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. She has a son and daughter from her marriage to Taylor.