Novello was born on January 1, 1943,[1] in Ashtabula, Ohio, the son of Eleanor Eileen Novello (née Finnerty), a nurse,[2] and Augustine Joseph Novello, a physician.[3] He is of Italian and Irish descent.[4]
In the late 1960s, Novello worked as an advertising copywriter for Leo Burnett in Chicago.[8][9]
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."[citation needed]
In the 1970s, Novello started to write letters to famous people under the pen name of Lazlo Toth (after Laszlo Toth, a deranged man who vandalized Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome). The letters, written to suggest a serious but misinformed and obtuse correspondent, were designed to tweak the noses of politicians and corporations. Many of them received serious responses; Novello sometimes continued the charade correspondence at length, with humorous results. The letters and responses were published in the books The Lazlo Letters,[10]Citizen Lazlo!,[11] and From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters.[12]
The Lazlo Letters, Novello's first book of stilted letters to celebrities, caught the attention of Lorne Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live. Novello was hired as a writer for the show's third season in 1977–1978 where he remained through the fifth season, and returned as a writer in the eleventh season. He also appeared numerous times on the show in the Father Guido Sarducci character.
In 1980, under the name of Father Guido Sarducci, he sang lead vocals on the Warner Bros. Records release "I Won't Be Twisting This Christmas"/"Parco MacArthur" (WBS49627). Novello co-wrote the first tune with M. Davich, and the second tune is an Italian language cover of "MacArthur Park", the Jimmy Webb song, in an arrangement similar to that recorded by Richard Harris.
Novello made newspapers around the world when he visited the Vatican in 1981 wearing the Father Guido Sarducci costume and, while taking photographs for a magazine article in an area where photography was prohibited, was arrested by the Swiss Guards along with his photographer (Paul Solomon), and eventually charged with "impersonating a priest". The charges were later dropped, and Solomon managed to protect the film from confiscation.
In his stage show in Las Vegas and Reno with the Smothers Brothers, Sarducci rolled a wheelchair with a dummy in the robes of a cardinal. In the act, Sarducci explained he was the assistant of 108-year-old "Cardinal Dario Fungi."
In 1984 Novello wrote The Blade, a high school yearbook parody in which the students are represented by sheep. Novello co-wrote the unfilmed script for Noble Rot with John Belushi. He also narrated Faerie Tale Theatre's third-season episode Pinocchio with Paul Reubens as the titular puppet. Also in 1984, Novello appeared in the music video for the Jefferson Starship song "No Way Out".
In 1989, Novello co-starred in the anthology film New York Stories in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed segment, Life Without Zoe. In his 2 1/2 star review of the movie, Roger Ebert cited Novello for giving "the most engaging performance in the movie."
In 1990, Novello portrayed "Dominic Abbandando" in the film The Godfather Part III. Abbandando appears with speaking lines in the first scene as public relations and media coordinator for Don Michael Corleone. Most notable is when he slaps down a news reporter with the challenge: "You think you know better than the Pope?" Novello appears in many other scenes as well, shadowing George Hamilton, and in the climactic scene on the steps of the Palermo opera house, Teatro Massimo.
American recording artist Guthrie Thomas credited Don Novello as "the best performer in the room" when Novello appeared as Father Guido Sarducci on one of Thomas' albums in a recording studio full of famous performers.[when?][citation needed]
Everybody's Free to Wear Camouflage (2000) (CD Single) written by Cat McLean, Don Novello and Narada Michael Walden, which was a top 20 hit in the UK. Performed as Father Guido Sarducci
One Hundred Bulbs on the Christmas Tree Party (2006) as Father Guido Sarducci
Gilda Susan Radner was an American actress and comedian. She was one of the seven original cast members of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from its inception in 1975 until her departure in 1980. In her routines on SNL, she specialized in parodies of television stereotypes, such as advice specialists and news anchors. In 1978, Radner won an Emmy Award for her performances on the show. She also portrayed those characters in her highly successful one-woman show on Broadway in 1979. Radner's SNL work established her as an iconic figure in the history of American comedy.
Father Guido Sarducci is a fictional character created by American comedian Don Novello. Sarducci is a chain-smoking priest with tinted glasses, who works in the United States as gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
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Laszlo Toth is a Hungarian-born Australian geologist. He achieved worldwide notoriety when he vandalised Michelangelo's Pietà statue on 21 May 1972. He was not charged with a criminal offence after the incident, but was hospitalized in Italy for two years. On his release, he was immediately deported to Australia.
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The ninth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 8, 1983, and May 12, 1984.
The fifth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 13, 1979, and May 24, 1980.
The fourth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 7, 1978, and May 26, 1979.
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↑ Parish, Tim; Wolf, Dan (Winter 1981). "Confessions of a T-Bird". The Thunderbird. American Graduate School of International Management – via Arizona Memory Project.
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