Don Novello is an American, writer,
film director, producer, actor and comedian.
Novello is best known for his work on NBC's Saturday
Night Live, from 1977 until 1987, as the character "Father
Guido Sarducci".
Novello has appeared as "Sarducci" on many
television shows since then, including Married with
Children, Blossom, It's Garry Shandling's Show, and
Square Pegs.
Novello made newspapers around the world when he
visited the Vatican wearing the full Father Guido Sarducci
costume and was arrested by the Swiss Guards for "impersonating
a priest". The charges were later dropped.
Novello started his career as a performer on The
Smothers Brothers Show in 1975.
In the early 1980s, Novello produced SCTV, a Toronto-based
comedy show, which starred Martin Short, Joe Flaherty,
John Hemphill, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, and Mary
Charlotte Wilcox.
In the 1970s Novello started to write letters to
famous people under the pen name of Lazlo Toth (name
taken from that of a deranged man who vandalized Michelangelo's
Pieta in Rome). The letters, designed to tweak the
noses of politicians and corporations, were full of
deliberate misstatements of fact and inside jokes.
Many of these letters 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 (ISBN 1563052857),
Citizen Lazlo! (ISBN 1563051826), and From Bush to
Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters (ISBN 0743251083).
In August 1981 Novello was arrested in Chelsea -
a smart area of London, England - outside the home
of a man named William Donaldson, against whom he held
a grudge. The London "Evening Standard" newspaper
reported him as saying, "I'll wring the guy's
neck if ever I get hold of him!" Charges of causing
a breach of the peace were later dropped when Novello
accepted a police "invitation" to cut short
his vacation and return to the US.
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.
In 1990, Novello portrayed "Dominic Abbandando" in
the film, "Godfather: Part III".
In 2003, he filed papers to enter the 2003 California
recall election, but failed to collect enough valid
signatures to qualify for the ballot. |