By Kiesly Jameson
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Don Novello (born January 1, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, writer, singer, film director and producer.
He appeared on NBC‘s Saturday Night Live as the character Father Guido Sarducci from 1978 to 1980, and 1985 to 1986. He appeared as Sarducci in television shows Married… with Children, Blossom, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, Unhappily Ever After, Square Pegs, and The Colbert Report, and in the 1980 film Gilda Live. He is the voice of Vincenzo “Vinny” Santorini in the franchise of Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Novello was born on January 1, 1943, in Ashtabula, Ohio, the son of Eleanor Eileen Novello (née Finnerty), a nurse, and Augustine Joseph Novello, a physician. He is of Italian and Irish descent.
Novello’s family moved to Lorain, Ohio, when he was a child. In 1961, he graduated from Lorain High School. He subsequently enrolled into the University of Dayton and graduated from it in 1964. In 1965, he graduated with a Bachelor of Foreign Trade degree from the American Graduate School of International Management (today the Thunderbird School of Global Management of Arizona State University).
In the late 1960s, Novello worked as an advertising copywriter for Leo Burnett in Chicago.
Novello created the Father Guido Sarducci character in 1973 after finding a monsignor‘s outfit for $7.50 at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop. Adding sunglasses, a broom mustache, cigarette and a thick Italian accent, Sarducci became popular in a San Francisco nightclub. Sarducci appeared on San Francisco Channel 20‘s Chicken Little Comedy Show, and comic David Steinberg was watching. Steinberg hired Novello as a writer for a TV show that never aired, but he also introduced Novello to Tommy and Dick Smothers, and they hired Novello, too. Novello performed on The Smothers Brothers Show in 1975, appearing as Sarducci. He also was with Pat Paulsen during Paulsen’s “Presidential Campaign Tour” in the mid-70s as his “Campaign Manager.”
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Happy New Year’s Day! January was named for the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings.
Janus looks simultaneously to the future and the past, a fitting symbol for this first day of the year. It’s natural for us to reflect on the past year and also look forward to the new. The weather of the first 12 days of the year is said to be indicative of the following 12 months. Also, Janus was known as the protector of gates and doorways, bridges, and passageways, which also symbolize beginnings and ends.
Interesting, January was originally the 11th month, not the 1st, until at least 153 B.C. In Rome, this month was often a time of peace when the gates of the temple were closed. Only when the gates were open was Rome at war.
Janus am I; oldest of potentates!
Forward I look and backward.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Question of the Day
* The original Roman calendar contained only ten months, with the new year starting on March 1.
* The ancient Celts celebrated the new year (Samhain) beginning at dusk on October 31.
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Paul Revere (patriot) –
- Betsy Ross (patriot) –
- E.M. Forster (novelist) –
- J. Edgar Hoover (director of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation) –
- Hank Greenberg (baseball player) –
- J.D. Salinger (author) –
- Carole Landis (actress) –
- Terry Moore (actress) –
- Don Novello (actor) –
- Kathleen Casey-Kirschling (official first baby boomer in United States) –
- Nancy Lopez (golfer) –
Died
- Johann Christian Bach (composer) –
- Maurice Chevalier –
- Ray Walston (actor) –
- Julia Phillips (first woman to win an Oscar Award [for co-producing the movie The Sting”]”) –
- Shirley Chisholm (an advocate for minority rights who became the first black woman elected to Congress) –
- Patti Page (singer) –
- Donna Douglas (actress) –
Events
- First U.S. flag, The Grand Union, was displayed by George Washington; it became the unofficial national flag, preceding the 13-star, 13 stripe version –
- Legislative Union of Great Britain with Ireland under the name of United Kingdom became effective –
- President John Adams held the first New Year’s reception in the White House –
- Importation of enslaved people into the U.S. officially banned –
- First recorded ten-pin bowling match played at Knickerbocker Alleys, NYC –
- The Emancipation Proclamation became law, marking the end of legalized slavery in the U.S. –
- State of New York introduced the electric chair for capital punishment –
- The U.S. government opened an immigrant processing station at Ellis Island, New York –
- First Rose Bowl football game played at Pasadena, California –
- U.S. Parcel Post service began –
- The British battleship Formidable was sunk in the English Channel by a German submarine with the loss of 600 lives (WW I) –
- Fiorello La Guardia is inaugurated as mayor of New York –
- The U.S. Navy commissioned its first woman doctor, Mary Sproul –
- Kurt Waldheim inaugurated as Secretary General of the United Nations –
- John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman, and John Mitchell were found guilty of obstructing justice in the Watergate Incident –
- Episcopal Church of the U.S. ordained its first woman priest –
- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. officially divested itself of 22 Bell System subsidiaries –
- First U.S. electronic highway toll collection, in Oklahoma –
- The Coney Island Polar Bear Club observed its 100th anniversary the same way it celebrated the previous 99—with a New Year’s Day plunge in the Atlantic Ocean –
- A strong earthquake rocked Mexico City and Acapulco –
- New England Patriots quarterback Doug Flutie converted the first successful drop kick in an NFL game since 1941 –
- Twelve-year-old Aidan Murray Medley caught a 551-pound bull shark just north of Palm Beach Inlet, Florida –
Weather
- Twenty-four degrees below zero F in Northfield, Vermont –
- Bethlehem, New Hampshire, recorded a temperature of -20 degrees F –
- VanBuren, Maine, recorded a temperature of -32 degrees F –
- Six day Great Plains and N. Rockies blizzard began, most adverse conditions in history of west –
- Maybell, Colorado, set a record low temperature of -60 degrees F –
COURTESY www.almanac.com
