2014: Don Pardo Dies

It was on this day in 2014 that Dominick George “Don” Pardo passed away. The radio and TV announcer’s career lasted over 70 years. Pardo began his voice work for NBC in 1956 announcing The Price is Right game show. In 1964, he moved over to Jeopardy where he stayed until 1975. He continued to be an announcer for various other TV game shows and announced for NBC’s Saturday Night Live from it’s beginning in 1975. He partially retired in 2004 but due to executive producer Lorne Michaels’ insistence, continued on with SNL under the assumption that Michaels would find a replacement. In 2006, Pardo would tape his announcements from his studio home in Arizona, but producers of the show insisted that he do the announcements live and so he would travel to and from New York every week. In 2009, Pardo was inducted into the Rhode Island Radio Hall of Fame and he suggested that that year would also be his last with SNL, but he continued on through 2014. While some may say that SNL was his greatest achievement, his family might think otherwise. He married Catherine Lyons in 1938 and stayed married until her death in 1995. The couple had five children together.