James Thomas Fallon Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, but has been quoted as saying he wishes that he was from Boston, Massachusetts. Jimmy is the son of Gloria and James Fallon, Sr., Jimmy Fallon Biography (1974-) who is a Vietnam War veteran. His family later settled in Saugerties, New York, while his father worked at IBM in nearby Kingston, New York. He is of Irish descent. 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 mix comedy and music in contests and shows.

Education

Fallon attended St. Mary of the Snow, a Roman Catholic parochial school, and Saugerties High School. He graduated in 1992 and attended The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. He was a Computer Science major, but switched to Communications in his senior year, dropping out 15 credits shy of a degree. "I was a Computer Science major. I got out once it got really hard. I made it up to C++. Then I couldn't do the math — it got really confusing. I switched to Communications, which is a ridiculous major — let's be honest," he recalls. On May 9, 2009, Fallon received a B.A. in Communications and an honorary Doctorate degree from The College of Saint Rose (Albany, NY) after presenting college officials with his impressive portfolio, which satisfied all requisites for his degree. In addition to receiving a BA, Fallon spoke at the school's 86th commencement. That night, on Saturday Night Live he held up his degree during the closing of the show. Additionally, he showed excerpts from the ceremony on his late night show May 11, 2009.

Stand-up

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..

Early work

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, and Adam Sandler, Jeff Foxworthy, Eddie Murphy, Larry the Cable Guy, many of which drew laughter from producer Lorne Michaels. Fallon also did musical impersonations of Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, and Robert Smith of The Cure.

Saturday Night Live

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.

Recurring characters

• Dave, a young man in the Will Ferrell/Rachel Dratch recurring sketch, "The Lovers", often used as a pawn in Roger and Virginia's matchmaking.
• Jarret (from Jarret's Room), a stoner who hosts his own Internet webcam show.
• Jeffrey's clerk, one of the clerks (the other being a male host for the show) of an upscale department store.
• Joey Mack, an obnoxious radio DJ who mocks his celebrity guests.
• Kip Bloder, brother to Chris Parnell's Wade Bloder.
• The Leather Man, an intense man who owns a shop filled with leather clothes.
• Nick Burns, a sarcastic tech support representative who helps office workers with computer problems (and is almost always exposed as not knowing as much as he should by one of the workers). He frequently used the catchphrase "Moooooove!" when ousting people from their desk so he could fix the problem.
• Pat Sullivan, nicknamed "Sully", one of the Boston Teens, boyfriend of Rachel Dratch's "Zazu" character.
• Patrick Fitzwilliam, a surly Irish who hosts a show called Top O' The Morning with his friend, William Fitzpatrick (played by Seth Meyers)
• Randy Goldman, from "Wake Up Wakefield", Megan's (Maya Rudolph) crush who doesn't know she exists.
• Rodney "The Zipper" Calzoun, the MC at the Rialto Grande
• Señor Guadalupe Ramirez, one of the guitar players on the recurring sketch, "The 'How Do You Say, Ah, Yes' Show"
• Wade, one of the members of the boy band 7 Degrees Celsius
• Barry Gibb, in the skit called "The Barry Gibb Talk Show", he hosts along with his brother Robin Gibb (played by Justin Timberlake).
• Carson Daly, whom he impersonated with the catch phrase "I am a massive tool."
• Pat O'Brien , who "doesn't breathe through his nose ever!"

Other works

Fallon has appeared in Taxi, Anything Else, Almost Famous, Fever Pitch, Band of Brothers, Doogal, Factory Girl and Whip It. He occasionally does stand up comedy at the Comedy Club in New York City.

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.Fallon also hosted the 2005 MTV Movie Awards and played Anakin Skywalker in comedic parody of 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 isn't on the list. The doorman finally recognizes him for his role in Taxi, but still won't 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.

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 Primtetime Emmy Awards. With Fallon as host, viewership of the 2010 Emmy Awards increased slightly--by over 200,000 viewers from the year before.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

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, 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.

Fallon married Nancy Juvonen on December 22, 2007. Juvonen is Drew Barrymore's producing partner.

Albums

• The Bathroom Wall (2002)

Singles

• "Idiot Boyfriend" (2002)