He was an integral part of “Saturday Night Live” for heralding the cast’s names to kick off each show, which led former cast member Jimmy Fallon to comment later, “Nothing is like the moment when Don Pardo says your name.” Pardo continued at “SNL” through the end of last season, when he performed the introductions on the finale in May.
His was no ordinary voice and he guarded it closely, with cough drops always at the ready.
“My voice is my Achilles’ heel,” Pardo said in a 1985 interview with The Associated Press. “When I get sick, it’s always my voice.”
Dominick George Pardo was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, on Feb. 22, 1918, and grew up in Norwich, Connecticut.
One of his first jobs was that of ticket-taker at a local movie theater; even then, his voice was commanding.
“I’d go out there with a cape and say: `Standing room only in the mezzanine. Immediate seating in the balcony.'”
His father, Dominick, owned a small bakery and had wanted his son to join the business. But Pardo followed his own dream and, after graduating from Boston’s Emerson College in 1942, began his vocal career at radio station WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island.
via AOL.com Article – Longtime ‘SNL’ announcer Don Pardo dies at 96.
