James Thomas Fallon, Jr., was born in Brooklyn, New York. Jimmy is the son of Gloria and James Fallon, Sr., who is a Vietnam War veteran. His family settled in Saugerties, New York, while his father worked at IBM in nearby Kingston, New York. As a child, he and his older sister, Gloria, would reenact the “clean parts” of Saturday Night Live that his parents had taped for him. Fallon was such a fan of Saturday Night Live that he made a weekly event of watching it in his dormitory during college. In his teens, he impressed his parents with different impersonations, the first being of James Cagney. He was also musically inclined, and started playing guitar at age 13. He would go on to perform comedy and music in contests and shows.
Fallon gives credit to troll dolls for his big break. He was given a troll doll with a graduation cap in his senior year of high school. His mother heard about an impression contest at Bananas Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie, NY. Fallon came up with a stand-up routine that was a commercial for troll dolls. He would impersonate various celebrities auditioning to be the spokesperson. He won the contest and after college he began to do stand-up tours across the country. When he was in Los Angeles, he took improv classes with The Groundlings.
Fallon appeared in the feature film The Scheme (originally entitled The Entrepreneurs). His one line in Father's Day was cut but he can still be seen in the background. In 1998 Fallon appeared briefly on the show Spin City in the second season as a man selling photographs. By late 1998, Fallon was studying at the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles, making $7.50 a set at The Improv Theater, when he was summoned to New York to audition for the long-running late night sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. Fallon did his impersonations of Jerry Seinfeld, French Stewart, Pat O'Brien, Chris Rock, Hilary Swank, Gilbert Gottfried, Enrique Iglesias, Adam Sandler, Jeff Foxworthy, Eddie Murphy, Larry the Cable Guy. Fallon also did musical impersonations of Bono of U2, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, and Robert Smith of The Cure.
Fallon's impersonations helped land him on Saturday Night Live as a featured player in the 1998–1999 season, and he was promoted to full cast member in the summer of 1999. Among his signature bits were his song parodies, which he performed when Colin Quinn was doing Update and continued to showcase on special occasions after he had replaced him. He became co-anchor of Weekend Update with Tina Fey with the October 7, 2000 season premiere. Fallon left SNL in 2004 and began pursuing a film career.
Fallon returned to SNL, hosting the December 17, 2011 episode, having made several cameos in episodes in the years since his departure. His performance hosting SNL earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
Fallon succeeded fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Conan O'Brien as the host of NBC's Late Night after O'Brien left the show to prepare to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2009. The deal for the long-expected succession was confirmed April 24, 2008, with an official announcement made on May 12, 2008 at NBC's upfront presentation. The official press conference was released on Hulu.com.
The show, titled Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, first aired on March 2, 2009 with guests Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, and musical guest Van Morrison. Guests on the show's first week included Tina Fey, Jon Bon Jovi, Cameron Diaz, Donald Trump, and Drew Barrymore.
"Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" sometimes features parodies by Fallon impersonating various musicians, and he has been praised for his ability to pull off spot-on impressions. Fallon often changes the lyrics to honor a recent event in popular culture and videos of these performances tend to go viral. In one segment, on May 26, 2011, Fallon impersonated Neil Young, singing along with guests Graham Nash and David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Recent parodies include Fallon impersonating Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam performing "Jeremy (Lin)" in light of the hysteria surrounding New York Knicks shocking standout Jeremy Lin, the Doors singing the theme song to the PBS children's show "Reading Rainbow", Neil Young's version of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song, and David Bowie's "Space Oddity" with inspiration by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. First appearing in January 2012, and dubbing himself as "Tebowie", Fallon's impersonation of the famously-religious quarterback went viral. Due to overwhelmingly positive acclaim from the public, Fallon revived the act on March 20, 2012 after the Denver Broncos acquired superstar and future hall of fame quarterback Peyton Manning, and revealed their intentions to trade Tebow. Fallon continues to do impersonations, particularly ones of famous singers, in some of the show's comedy segments.
To celebrate the second anniversary on March 2, 2011, Ben & Jerry's launched a personalized "Late Night Snack" ice cream. This was immediately parodied on The Colbert Report the next day and the two show hosts engaged in a brief ice cream personality war. Colbert used numerous "fecal matter" jokes to describe the flavor of the ice cream named after Jimmy Fallon.
On November 21, 2011, U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, who was active in the Republican Presidential Primaries at the time, appeared as a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. As she walked onto the stage, the band played a funk song titled "Lyin' Ass Bitch," without any lyrics. Hours earlier, the band's drummer Questlove had sent a tweet about the song choice: “late night walkon song devotees: you love it when we snark: this next one takes the cake. ask around cause i aint tweeting title.” After a prominent Democratic Congress woman complained, Fallon made a general apology by tweet. Fallon began his tweet with the words: "I'm honored that @michelebachmann was on our show yesterday and I'm so sorry about the intro mess." Fallon also used his Twitter account to tease his Roots bandleader Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson that he was "grounded".
According to Tyra Banks from her appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on August 21, 2012, Jimmy has an 'M' shaped forehead, measuring 7 inches across, 3 inches in height from the middle of his eyebrows, and 4 inches in height from the middle of either eyebrow, thus qualifying him for the forehead crew.
Fallon appeared in Taxi, Anything Else, Almost Famous, Fever Pitch, Band of Brothers, Doogal, Factory Girl and Whip It. He occasionally does stand up comedy in New York City and has also performed at the House of Blues in Boston, Massachusetts on occasions.
In 2002, Fallon released the comedy album The Bathroom Wall. In a mixed review, Rolling Stone praised the album's songs, calling the album the "second-best Prince parody ever, after Beck's 'Debra'." However the magazine panned the album's comedy routines, ultimately giving it two-out-of-five stars. The album was nominated for a Grammy in 2003 for Best Spoken Comedy Album. Fallon co-hosted the 2001 MTV Movie Awards with Kirsten Dunst on June 7, 2001. Fallon has played Neo in Sex and the Matrix, a comedic two-in-one parody of Sex and the City and The Matrix. He hosted the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards alone that year. His opening number included parodies of videos by Eminem, Avril Lavigne, Nelly, The White Stripes, Dave Matthews and Enrique Iglesias.
Also in 2002, Fallon appeared in The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch as the son of Melvin Hall, and constantly pesters his father, often stealing his mike, claiming that the film is "his documentary."
Fallon also hosted the 2005 MTV Movie Awards and played Anakin Skywalker in comedic parody of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith's Mustafar scene, in which Anakin and Padme have their last conversation. Fallon was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002, an honor Fallon found embarrassing.
Following the Boston Red Sox's World Series clinching game over the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004, Fallon ran onto the field at Busch Stadium with Drew Barrymore to film a scene for their movie Fever Pitch.
In 2006, Fallon starred in "Spontaneous Combustion", a Traktor-directed Pepsi television commercial with actress Parker Posey. In the ad, Fallon and Posey can be seen dancing and jumping around to the song Streamline by Newton. In October of that year, Fallon appeared on stage in The Secret Policeman's Ball, a charity gig filmed to raise awareness of Amnesty International at the Royal Albert Hall. Fallon made three appearances during the show, the first in a sketch in which he performed impressions of people such as David Bowie, Jerry Seinfeld and David Blaine in order to get past a doorman (Shaun Williamson) who claims Fallon is not on the list. The doorman finally recognizes him for his role in Taxi, but still will not let him in. He later masqueraded as Russell Brand before being led off by Williamson, and made one final appearance in a cameo role as the front of a pantomime horse in the Al Murray "pub landlord" routine. He also provided the voice of Dylan in Doogal.
In 2007, Fallon wrote the song "Car Wash for Peace" and donated all proceeds to charity. He performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The View and dedicated a MySpace page to the cause. Around the same time, a video circulated on various Internet sites called lonelyfallon32, in which Fallon parodied YouTube celebrity Jessica Rose (a.k.a. lonelygirl15) and later performed the song.
Fallon, along with his sister Gloria, wrote I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life for TV Books in 1999. A second book is anticipated but has not yet been released, to be titled "I Hate This Place 2: Tokyo Drift." Fallon has also written a children's book, illustrated by Adam Stower, entitled Snowball Fight.
Fallon also appeared on Diggnation's 185th show.
On May 4, 2010, NBC announced that Fallon would host the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards. With Fallon as host, viewership of the 2010 Emmy Awards increased by over 200,000 viewers from the year before.
On April 24, 2012, Jimmy Fallon filmed his live show in Chapel Hill, NC on the campus of the University of North Carolina. His guest was President Barack Obama, who spoke primarily about Congress potentially doubling the interest rates of student loans. His musical guest was Dave Matthews.
On June 9, 2012, he guest-hosted American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest.
On June 12, 2012, Fallon released his second comedy album, Blow Your Pants Off. Most of the songs comes from his Late Night impersonations, such as Tebowie and Neil Young. The album is also notable for its guest appearances, which include Stephen Colbert, Eddie Vedder, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Justin Timberlake, Dave Matthews, Big & Rich, and newscaster Brian Williams. The album won a Grammy in 2013 for Best Comedy Album. In an interview with American Songwriter, Fallon stated that “Any comedy album that has Justin Timberlake, Paul McCartney, Eddie Vedder, Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen – that’s pretty crazy. If I was 15-year-old me, I would be like, ‘Oh my God, this is awesome!’ Though I’d probably be like, ‘Who’s Dave Matthews?’ because he doesn’t exist yet.”
Fallon is the creator and one of the executive producers of Guys with Kids, part of NBC's 2012–13 television schedule.
Fallon married Nancy Juvonen on December 22, 2007. Juvonen and Drew Barrymore own the production company Flower Films. He has also dated Tara Subkoff and Winona Ryder in the past. Fallon has a dog named Gary Frick, who often appears on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
On February 22, 2011, Fallon was on The Dr. Oz Show. He had a mole removed from his left hand in front of a live studio audience by visiting cosmetic surgeon Arthur Perry.
Twitter
Facebook
MySpace
