Don Pardo

Don Pardo was born on February 22, 1918 in Westfield, Massachusetts, USA as Dominick George Pardo.

Joined NBC Radio as a staff announcer on June 15, 1944.

Announcer for NBC Radio's "The Magnificent Montague" (1950-1951).

As a staff announcer at NBC on November 22, 1963, he read the first account of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in a voiceover on the NBC Television Network.

Has been the announcer for Saturday Night Live (1975) for every season except the seventh. Thus, he was the person that's been involved with the show for the longest, even longer than executive producer Lorne Michaels who left the show from 1980-1985.

Don Pardo participated on stage with Frank Zappa doing a monologue for the song "The Illinois Enema Bandit" on the album 'Zappa In New York' recorded late December 1976.

He appeared as the Jeopardy Announcer in 'Weird Al' Yankovic's music video "I Lost On Jeopardy" (1984). Pardo informs Yankovic of what he did not win: neither consolation prizes nor a lousy copy of the home game. Furthermore, he informs Yankovic that he has made himself look like a jerk in front of millions of people, and has brought shame and disgrace to his family name for generations to come as a result of his disastrous showing. He also informs Yankovic that he will not come back the next day and that he is a complete loser.

He was an actor, known for Radio Days (1987), Stay Tuned (1992) and 'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection (2003). He was married to Catherine Anne (Kay) Lyons.

He semi-retired in 2004 (he could never fully retire, since he had the last remaining NBC lifetime contract), and moved to Tucson, Arizona. But, Saturday Night Live (1975) (SNL) producers convinced him to continue announcing for the show. Thereafter, for every new SNL episode, Pardo was flown from his Tucson home to New York City. In the time since 2004, for a few episodes, SNL producers allowed him to tape announcements from his home. But the producers had a strongly expressed preference to have him in the SNL studio to warm-up the audience and insisted he come to the SNL studio for each new live SNL to announce.

On the February 23, 2008 broadcast of Saturday Night Live (SNL), Pardo was brought on camera at the end of the show, which was actually the morning of Sunday, February 24, 2008, he was honored in celebration of his 90th birthday, and blew out the candles on his 90th birthday cake.

On May 14, 2009, when he was inducted into the Rhode Island Radio Hall of Fame, Pardo suggested that the May 16, 2009, episode of Saturday Night Live (1975) (SNL) would be his last. This turned out not to be true, when he returned to his announcing duties for SNL's 35th season, still flying to New York City once per week for SNL's live broadcast. Beginning with the 36th season, SNL producers relented, and allowed him to pre-record his segments from his Tucson, Arizona home studio, instead of performing live in New York City.

Inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, with the other members of the Hall of Fame "class" of 2010.

When he broke his hip in the spring of 2013, he missed two Saturday Night Live (1975) (SNL) broadcasts, late in the 2012-2013 SNL season.

As of his death on August 18, 2014, he had been a continuous employee (with the last remaining lifetime contract) of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) for 70 years, 64 days. To express this in another way, he was a continuous employee of NBC for a total of 25,631 consecutive days, since being hired as a NBC Radio staff announcer on June 15, 1944.