Carly Simon shared a heartbreaking statement mourning the loss of her two sisters, Joanna and Lucy, who died of cancer one day apart from each other.
“I am filled with sorrow to speak about the passing of Joanna and Lucy Simon,” the singer wrote in a statement shared via email with TODAY. “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.”
She continued, adding, “We were three sisters who not only took turns blazing trails and marking courses for one another, we were each others secret shares. The co-keepers of each other’s memories.”
“I have no words to explain the feeling of suddenly being the only remaining direct offspring of Richard and Andrea Simon,” she wrote. “They touched everyone they knew and those of us they’ve left behind will be lucky and honored to carry their memories forward.”
Carly Simon signed-off her statement, adding the note, “With great and eternal love and respect.”
Joanna Simon, who was an opera singer and the eldest of the Simon sisters, died of thyroid cancer on Wednesday, Oct. 19 in Manhattan. She was 85, set to turn 86 the following day on October 20.
Lucy Simon, a Broadway composer, died of metastatic breast cancer Thursday, Oct. 20 at her home in Piermont, New York. She was 82.
In 2018, the sisters also lost their brother and the youngest of the family, Peter. After a bout of cancer, the photographer died at age 71 of cardiac arrest in November 2018.
Joanna Simon began performing regularly in 1962, making her debut at the New York City Opera as Mozart’s Cherubino. One decade later in 1972 she performed as the titular role in Thomas Pasatieri’s “Black Widow” at the Seattle Opera, followed three years later by her role of Pelagia in Robert Starer’s “The Last Lover” at the Caramoor Music Festival in 1975. She ultimately retired from music in 1986, going on to work as an arts correspondent for for PBS’s “MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour," where she won an Emmy in 1991, until 1992.
Prior to Lucy Simon’s career on Broadway as a composer, she and her sister Carly Simon began as a folk act in Provincetown, Massachusetts as the Simon Sisters. They reached no. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1964 for their recording of “Wynken, Blynken & Nod.” Lucy Simon went on to win a Grammy for best recording for children in 1981 with her husband David Levine, winning the same award a second time two years later in 1983.
Lucy Simon also had a storied career on Broadway, earning a Tony Award nomination for her work on “The Secret Garden" in 1991. In recent years, she contributed to the musical “On Cedar Street,” but had to step away from the project due to her battle with cancer.