James Thomas Fallon also known as Jimmy Fallon is an American comedian, actor, and television personality. He is most known for his work on Saturday Night Live as a cast member and as the host of the late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, which he took over after Late Night with Jimmy Fallon ended.
Jimmy Fallon grew up loving humor and music and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 21 to pursue stand-up comedy. In 1998, he was asked to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, achieving a longstanding ambition. Between 1998 and 2004, he spent six years on Saturday Night Live, co-hosting the show’s Weekend Update segment, and became well-known in the process. He departed the show to star in movies like Taxi and Fever Pitch (2005).
After a successful film career, Fallon returned to television in 2009 as the host of NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where he became noted for his emphasis on music and video games. In 2014, he left that show to become the long-running Tonight Show’s sixth regular host. He has released two comedy CDs and seven books, mostly for youngsters, in addition to his television work.
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Table of Contents
Early Life
Jimmy Fallon was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, New York, on September 19, 1974. Fallon went to a Roman Catholic school called St. Mary of the Snow. He was an altar boy at school and considered becoming a priest at one point.
Fallon’s religious aims faded as he became more interested in humor after hearing the Dr. Demento show on the radio. Fallon, like many other youngsters, grew enamored with Saturday Night Live. For their parents and friends, he and his sister played out sketches from the show.
During his four years at Saugerties High School, he was a performer in nearly every stage performance. In 1992, he graduated from Saugerties High School. He went to the college of saint rose, Albany in New York. He did stand-up comedy on the weekends. He dropped out of college a semester before graduation in 1995, at the age of 21, to pursue a full-time comedy career in Los Angeles.
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Career
Jimmy joined The Groundlings improv group in Los Angeles and began honing his stand-up routine. He frequently performed stand-up at the famed Improv, where he was paid $7.50 each performance, which didn’t even cover the Improv’s parking fees.
In 1997, Jimmy Fallon tried out for Saturday Night Live for the first time but was rejected. At the age of 23, Fallon landed his second SNL audition. SNL auditions are notoriously challenging and scary. Several people told him during the audition that creator Lorne Michaels never laughed during the process.
Jimmy Fallon took the stage and performed admirably. He did a “celebrity walk-a-thon” sketch in which he imitated well-known comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock. Michaels laughed heartily. He was cast as a member of the cast for the 1998-1999 season. Fallon rose to prominence as the show’s most prominent impressionist.
Jimmy Fallon initially planned to follow in the footsteps of John Belushi and spend three years on Saturday Night Live. When he and Tina Fey were given the reins of the Weekend Update in 2000, he was persuaded to stay. Fallon co-starred in a spoof with Justin Timberlake called “The Barry Gibb Talk Show” on Saturday Night Live in his latter years, portraying musicians Barry and Robin Gibb. This was the start of Timberlake’s lengthy friendship and collaboration with him. Fallon was a cast member of Saturday Night Live through the 2004 season.
He’s been dubbed “the best SNL cast member since Phil Hartman” and is a fan favorite. Jimmy went on to star in films such as Fever Pitch, Factory Girl, Ted 2, Jem and the Holograms, iCarly, 30 Rock, Family Guy, Taxi, and Whip It after leaving SNL.
In 2009, he took over as host of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. In April 2013, NBC announced that Jimmy has been chosen to succeed Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show following the 2014 Winter Olympics.
He is the first permanent host of The Tonight Show in its history (apart from founding host Steve Allen). Jay Leno had previously done guest-hosting for Johnny Carson, Jack Parr, and Steve Allen. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2010, Saturday Night Live won in 2012 and 2014, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon won in 2015.
In 2020, Jimmy Fallon collaborated with WubbaNub to make two limited-edition pacifiers based on his children’s books’ penguin and cow characters. He faced backlash in January 2022 after discussing NFTs (and promoting one of his own NFTs) on his show during an interview with Paris Hilton, which may have violated NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast’s conflict of interest policies; his own NFT was estimated to have cost around $216,000 in November 2021, and his promotion of it on the show could potentially boost its asking price if he decided to sell it. NBC responded to the criticism by claiming that Fallon had not violated company conflict of interest policies.
Jimmy Fallon explained to David Steinberg on the Showtime series “Inside Comedy” that he and his sister used to impersonate Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd’s “Wild and Crazy Guys” routines from Saturday Night Live as kids, and that he learned to imitate Rodney Dangerfield through listening to comedy recordings. When he participated in the television documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth in 2009, he discussed the impact of Monty Python (Lawyers Cut).
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Personal Life
Jimmy Fallon is a devout Catholic who told NPR once, “I loved the church. I loved the idea of it. I loved the smell of the incense. I loved the feeling you get when you left the church. I loved how this priest can make people feel this good. I just thought it was I loved the whole idea of it.”
On December 22, 2007, Fallon married film producer Nancy Juvonen. They met on the set of Saturday Night Live, but it wasn’t until later on the set of Fever Pitch that they became friends. On the dock of Juvonen’s family house in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, he proposed in August 2007 a Neil Lane-designed engagement ring.
Four months later, they married. Winnie and Frances Cole are their surrogacy daughters. They have a female English Golden Retriever named Gary Frick who has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. They live in Sagaponack, New York.
Jimmy Fallon had a ring avulsion injury on June 26, 2015, when he tripped over a rug in his home and tried to break his fall by hanging onto a tabletop, nearly ripping his finger off. He was rushed to the hospital’s emergency room and subsequently to a surgeon, who conducted microsurgery on his finger. He stayed in the ICU for ten days before returning home. On the Tonight Show on July 13, he talked about it and thanked the physicians and nurses who helped him. He was still expected to be without feeling in his finger for another eight weeks a month later.
In a September 2015 interview with Billboard magazine, he said that his finger still had limited mobility and that he would need another operation. He emphasized this point during the 67th Emmy Awards on September 20, 2015, when he appeared in public for the first time since the accident without his finger bandaged.
Gloria Fallon, Jimmy Fallon’s mother, died at NYU Langone Medical Center on November 4, 2017, at the age of 68 from unexplained circumstances. The Tonight Show’s scheduled tapings for the next week were canceled. Following that night’s monologue, Fallon paid tribute to his mother, becoming emotional and calling her “the best audience.”
Jimmy Fallon announced on Instagram on January 4, 2022, that he had tested positive for COVID-19 during the holiday season. He thanked doctors and said he was “lucky enough to only have mild symptoms”.
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Who Is Nancy Juvonen?
Nancy Juvonen is an American film producer. Nancy Juvonen is a California native who attended the University of Southern California. “Olive, the Other Reindeer,” “Never Been Kissed,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Donnie Darko,” “Duplex,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” “50 First Dates,” “Fever Pitch,” “Music & Lyrics,” “Whip It!” and “He’s Just Not That Into You” are among the projects she has worked on as an Executive Producer or Producer. Nancy Juvonen’s net worth is $20 million as a film producer from the United States.
Flower Films, which she co-owns with Drew Barrymore, is her producing firm. While working on the film “Mad Love,” her brother, who is also a writer and producer, introduced the two women. She established Clarence Clemons’ production company in addition to her own.
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Jimmy Fallon’s Net Worth
Jimmy Fallon has a $60 million net worth. He is best known for his appearances on Saturday Night Live. His pay as host of the show is $16 million per year.
Real Estate
Jimmy bought his first piece of real estate in 2002, a one-bedroom condo in New York City for $850,000. Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, encouraged him to buy the apartment. Jimmy later said that he couldn’t afford the purchase in 2002, but he wisely heeded Lorne’s advice.
They began buying up nearby units after he married Nancy Juvonen. They paid $725,000 for a top-floor studio apartment in 2014, for example. The studio was purchased in addition to a one-bedroom apartment next door for $1.35 million a few months ago in the nine-story, about 35-unit complex.
