Carly Simon shared a heartbreaking tribute Saturday with People, following the deaths of her two sisters — who died one day apart last week. Joanna Simon, 85, died of thyroid cancer on Wednesday and Lucy Simon, 82, succumbed to metastatic breast cancer on Thursday.
“I am filled with sorrow to speak about the passing of Joanna and Lucy Simon,” she said in a statement to People. “Their loss will be long and haunting. As sad as this day is, it’s impossible to mourn them without celebrating their incredible lives that they lived.”
Carly and Lucy formed The Simon Sisters in the 1960s. Lucy later went to nursing school, married illustrator David Levine and had two children. In the 1980s, Lucy produced two children’s albums, “In Harmony” and “In Harmony 2,” which each won a Grammy award. Her 1991 score for “The Secret Garden” made her the third female composer on Broadway, and she was nominated for a Tony.
“We were three sisters who not only took turns blazing trails and marking courses for one another, we were each other’s secret shares,” Simon told People. “The co-keepers of each other’s memories.”
A mezzo soprano, Joanna made her opera debut in “The Marriage of Figaro” in New York City in 1962. She went on to perform at the Seattle Opera, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She married New York Times editor Gerald Walker in 1976.
Joanna later became an Emmy-winning arts correspondent for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” where she stayed until the early ’90s, according to Deadline. Her husband died in 2004.
Carly Simon, whom frequent collaborator Van Dyke Parks called “one of the most decent artists for whom I’ve arranged” in a tweet Saturday, has now lost all three of her siblings. Her brother, Peter, died of cardiac arrest in 2018 at 71 after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
The “You’re So Vain” singer has led a staggering career, winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 1989 for “Let the River Run,” which featured in “Working Girl” starring Melanie Griffith. The track earned her a Grammy Award the following year.
“I have no words to explain the feeling of suddenly being the only remaining direct offspring of Richard and Andrea Simon,” Simon told People, adding that her sisters “touched everyone they knew and those of us they’ve left behind will be lucky and honored to carry their memories forward.”