Jimmy Fallon

James Thomas Fallon was born on September 19, 1974, in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the son of Gloria (née Feeley, 1949–2017) and James W. Fallon (born 1948). He is of Irish, German, and Norwegian descent. His paternal grandmother, Luise Schalla, was a German immigrant from Osterholz-Scharmbeck, and his maternal grandmother's father, Hans Hovelsen, was a Norwegian immmigrant from Fredrikstad. Another set of great-great-grandparents were Thomas Fallon, an Irishman from County Galway, and Louisa Stickever, the daughter of an Irishman born in France and his Irish wife.

At Saugerties High School, he was a performer in most stage productions and was twice a class social director. He won a young comedian's contest with an impression of Pee-wee Herman. He graduated in 1992 and then attended The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, where he was a computer science major before switching to communications in his senior year. He was an average student. On weekends, he would perform stand-up comedy. Fallon would often board buses from his aunt's house in Fort Hamilton to perform sets at Caroline's Comedy Club in Times Square. He did not graduate, leaving college a semester early to pursue a comedy career.

Fallon dropped out of the College of Saint Rose a semester shy of a degree in communications in 1995 to move to Los Angeles and pursue comedy full-time. He secured a manager and got bookings by the age of 21. He often did stand-up at the Improv, earning $7.50 per set, and he joined classes with the Groundlings, an improv comedy troupe. He appeared in the feature film The Scheme (originally entitled The Entrepreneurs). His one line in the 1997 film 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.

He remained fixated on joining Saturday Night Live. After two years of working with the Groundlings, he auditioned for the program in 1997, but was unsuccessful. When he was cast in a pilot presentation for The WB, Fallon made sure to include a clause in his contract specifying that if he were to join SNL he would be released from his contract. His manager sent videotapes to Marci Klein and Ayala Cohen, producers for SNL.

Fallon debuted on Saturday Night Live as a featured player at the beginning of the show's twenty-fourth season in September 1998. He became a star by his fourth episode, when he performed Halloween-themed versions of songs by popular artists, as well as his Sandler impression. Fallon became a celebrity, considered charming by his largely female fan-base, receiving numerous letters from fans, and becoming the subject of numerous fan-sites. He became the program's most featured mimic, doing popular impressions of Robert De Niro, Jerry Seinfeld, and Howard Stern. He also starred as many original characters, including Nick Burns, an IT support nerd, Pat "Sully" Sullivan, one of the Boston Teens with Rachel Dratch, and in Jarret's Room, a fictional webcast hosted by stoner college students Jarret (Fallon) and Gobi (Horatio Sanz). He was promoted to repertory player in his second season.

Fallon became well known for his tendency to break character in sketches, an attribute he himself, as well as Michaels, disliked. It began in the infamous "More cowbell" sketch, when Will Ferrell wore a tighter shirt than expected, causing Fallon to crack up. Following this, other cast members would intentionally try to get Fallon to break. Other cast members believed he was attempting to steal the moment, to make the sketch about himself. The joke became near-constant during Fallon's final year on the show. During this time, Fallon parlayed his SNL success into co-hosting the 2001 MTV Movie Awards and 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, and the recording on his debut comedy album, The Bathroom Wall (2002), which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. He also modeled for Calvin Klein. Fallon was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002, an honor Fallon found embarrassing.

Fallon began to pursue a movie career beginning in 2004. He had spurned most major roles due to lack of time and disinterest in the dozens of scripts he read. He signed on for his first lead role in Taxi, a remake of a French film. Fallon had read the script in the prior years but became more interested when co-star Queen Latifah became attached to the project. He was also attracted to the film's action comedy tone, seeing comparisons with SNL alumnus Eddie Murphy's first big film, 48 Hrs. (1982).

In the fall of 2003, he split his time between shooting the film in Los Angeles and returning to New York City for SNL. Due to these conflicts (and his contract ending), his sixth season at SNL was his last, with Fallon signing off at the conclusion of the show's twenty-ninth season in May 2004.

With big expectations from the studio, Taxi premiered in the fall of 2004 and was a flop with critics and audiences, resulting in Fallon's first failure. 20th Century Fox had already signed him on for his second major role, starring opposite Drew Barrymore in the 2005 romantic comedy Fever Pitch. Fever Pitch did not fare much better than Taxi, receiving mild reviews and tepid box office returns. He met his wife, producer Nancy Juvonen, during production of the film and the two wed in December 2007.

Prior to leaving SNL, Michaels had mentioned to Fallon that he would be a good fit to take over NBC's Late Night franchise when then-host Conan O'Brien would depart the show to host the long-running Tonight Show in the future. Michaels urged NBC to give Fallon a holding deal in February 2007 so that he couldn't be lured elsewhere.

Fallon married film producer Nancy Juvonen, co-owner of production company Flower Films, on December 22, 2007. They met initially on the set of Saturday Night Live but became friends on the set of Fever Pitch. Fallon proposed in August 2007 with a Neil Lane-designed engagement ring, at sunset on the dock of Juvonen's family home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. They were married four months later. Their daughters, Winnie and Frances Cole, were born in 2013 and 2014 via gestational surrogacy. They have a female English cream Golden Retriever named Gary Frick that has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He and his family live in Sagaponack, New York.

To prepare for the role of a late-night host, Fallon toured college campuses and comedy clubs for eight months, where he tested out a new, 50-minute routine. He also began watching the comedy of Chevy Chase, Dick Cavett, and Johnny Carson, as well as The Larry Sanders Show. In May 2008, Fallon was announced as the successor to O'Brien's Late Night.

In May 2009, 14 years later, he returned to receive a Bachelor of Arts in communications, awarded by Saint Rose officials who granted him experiential learning credits for his television work. He joined his classmates at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to collect his degree.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon premiered in March 2009 to mixed reviews. Producer Michael Shoemaker felt that the show's style solidified when it used Susan Boyle as a joke. While other late-night programs had centered on her appearance, Fallon's Late Night debuted a sketch in which Boyle's emotional performances could "salve any affliction." It was this style of humor, that Adam Sternbergh of New York dubbed "the comedy of unabashed celebration," that led to the program's success.

Fallon told David Steinberg on the Showtime series Inside Comedy that as a child he and his sister would imitate Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd's "Wild and Crazy Guys" routines from Saturday Night Live, and that he listened to comedy records, learning to imitate Rodney Dangerfield from them. In 2009 he spoke on the influence of Monty Python when he appeared in the television documentary, Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Lawyers Cut).

Fallon also hosted the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2010. In 2012, Fallon released his second comedy album, Blow Your Pants Off, which compiles many of his musical performances on Late Night. The album won a Grammy in 2013 for Best Comedy Album. Discussions for Fallon to take over The Tonight Show began in early 2013.

On April 3, 2013, following a period of speculation, NBC announced that Fallon would succeed Jay Leno to become the sixth permanent host of The Tonight Show following the 2014 Winter Olympics. Fallon and Leno sang a parody of the song "Tonight" about the Tonight Show together. Fallon's Tonight Show debut on February 17, 2014, on NBC's network engaged 11.3 million viewers.

Fallon's third book, Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada, a children's book, was released in June 2015.

On June 26, 2015, Fallon suffered a ring avulsion, an injury he suffered by tripping over a rug in his home and trying to break his fall by holding onto a countertop where his wedding ring nearly tore off his finger. He was taken to the emergency room and then sent to a surgeon who performed microsurgery on his finger. Fallon spent 10 days in the ICU before going home. He discussed this on the July 13 episode of the Tonight Show and thanked the doctors and nurses who helped him. As of July 14, 2015, he was expecting to spend another eight weeks without any feeling in his finger. In an interview with Billboard magazine in September 2015, Fallon explained that his finger still had limited mobility and that another surgery would be required. He reiterated this point at the 67th Emmy Awards on September 20, 2015, when he appeared in public without his finger bandaged for the first time since the accident.

On September 15, 2016, Fallon hosted Donald Trump on The Tonight Show during the United States presidential election. Following the appearance, Fallon was criticized by some media critics and viewers on social media for the uncontroversial questions he asked of Trump. David Sims, writing in The Atlantic, called the interview an "embarrassment." In response to the criticism, Fallon said to TMZ: "Have you seen my show? I'm never too hard on anyone. We'll have Hillary [Clinton] on tomorrow, and we'll do something fun with her too." Fallon apologized in March 2017 for the interview, saying "I didn't do it to humanize him. I almost did it to minimize him. I didn't think that would be a compliment ... After this happened, I was devastated. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just trying to have fun." He again apologized for the interview in June 2018 on a Hollywood Reporter podcast, saying that he "made a mistake" and added "I did not do it to 'normalize' him or to say I believe in his political beliefs or any of that stuff."

On November 4, 2017, Fallon's mother, Gloria Fallon, died from undisclosed causes at age 68 at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. Scheduled tapings of the following week's Tonight Show episodes were canceled. One week later, Fallon paid tribute to his mother following that night's monologue, becoming emotional and calling her "the best audience."

In 2020, Fallon partnered with pacifier producer WubbaNub to create two limited-edition pacifiers based on the penguin and cow characters in his children's books.