Harry Connick, Jr.

Name at birth: Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr.

Sometimes called the heir apparent to Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick, Jr. brought a crooner's voice, lean good looks and a classic pop sensibility to jazz in the 1990s. Connick was a child prodigy in New Orleans, playing piano in French Quarter clubs and rubbing elbows with fellow jazz prodigies Wynton and Branford Marsalis. By 1987 he was in New York and had released his self-titled first album for Columbia. His 1998 album 20 (named for his age) was later followed by 25 and 30, plus many other jazz and swing albums. Connick composed the score to the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally and later turned to acting himself, playing a WWII flyboy in Memphis Belle (1990), wingman for Will Smith in Independence Day (1996), and a small-town Texas Romeo in Hope Floats (1998, with Sandra Bullock). In 2001 he made his Broadway debut, scoring the New Orleans-tinged musical Thou Shalt Not.