Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Actor > F > John Facenda

Profile of John Facenda on Famous Like Me

 
Name: John Facenda  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 8th August 1913
   
Place of Birth: Portsmouth, Virginia, USA
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
John Thomas Ralph Augustine James Facenda
Image:John facenda.jpg
John Facenda
Born August 8, 1913
Portsmouth, Virginia, USA
Died September 26, 1984
Havertown, Pennsylvania, USA

John Facenda (August 8, 1913 - September 26, 1984) was a broadcaster and sports announcer. He was a fixture on Philadelphia radio and television for decades, and achieved national fame as a narrator for NFL Films.

Biography

Radio and television work

John Facenda attended the Villanova University but dropped out. It has been speculated that this was for economic reasons, particularly because of the Great Depression. After leaving school, he found employment with the Philadelphia Public Ledger, a now-defunct newspaper. The Public Ledger also owned a radio station, WHAT. Facenda's radio career began when the announcer for WHAT's "Scholastic Sports Review" program got sick one day, and Facenda was asked to substitute. Soon after, WHAT hired Facenda as an announcer.

Facenda left WHAT after the station's manager refused to reimburse Facenda $5 for a pair of pigskin gloves he wore while knocking ice off the station's antenna (one of his duties). He moved to New York City and worked for a few years as the program director for the Ticker News Service, another radio-based business.

He returned to Philadelphia in 1935 and started working for WIP Radio, where he would remain until 1952. He began his work in television at WCAU-TV, then the Philadelphia CBS television affiliate, in 1948. His anchored his first newscast on the station on September 13, 1948. He started working full-time at the station after leaving WIP in 1952. Facenda ended his newscasts with the familiar refrain, "Have a nice night tonight and a good day tomorrow. Goodnight, all." The phrase even found its way into 1956's The Burglar, starring Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea.

During the 1950s and 1960s Facenda's newscast was the dominant news broadcast in the Philadelphia area (beating the combined ratings of the two other network affiliates) and Facenda achieved iconic status in Philadelphia as both a face and voice before his rise to national prominence. His newscasts, originally just five minutes long, were eventually expanded to 30 minutes.

NFL Films

One night in 1965 Facenda went to a local tavern, the RDA Club, which happened to be showing footage produced by NFL Films. He enjoyed the slow-motion game sequences that were already an NFL Films trademark and would later recall:

"I started to rhapsodize about how beautiful it was. Ed Sabol, the man who founded NFL Films, happened to be at the bar. He came up to me and asked, 'If I give you a script, could you repeat what you just did?' I said I would try."

Thus began Facenda's association with NFL Films, one that would continue until his death. Facenda narrated countless highlight films during his career with the company. His stentorian baritone was the perfect match for the highly dramatic nature of the footage he narrated, and earned him the nickname "The Voice of God." Probably one of the best-remembered (and most frequently-quoted) example of Facenda's NFL Films narration is his reference to "the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field" in a film of the infamous "Ice Bowl" game of 1967.

Facenda's speaking style is frequently emulated, often in a parodic manner, in contemporary sports news and advertising, and to this day remains the sound most closely linked with NFL Films.

End of Facenda's anchorman career

In the early 1970s, rival WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) adopted an "action news" format based on the news broadcasts heard on Top 40 radio stations and heavily influenced by tabloid newspapers. WCAU-TV's news broadcast fell to last place in the ratings and management considered Facenda too old to appeal to youthful viewers. In 1972 a co-anchor was brought in for Facenda's newscast. Facenda, aware of the growing youth movement in Philadelphia, decided to step down as anchorman at the age of 60. His last newscast as anchor for WCAU was on March 23, 1973. Many viewers were upset over the loss of Facenda, and the newscast's ratings did not improve.

Facenda continued his association with WCAU, serving as host and narrator of various WCAU public affairs series. He was co-anchor for the station's coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to Philadelphia in 1979. Twelve days before Facenda died, he was presented with the Governors Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Philadelphia chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

John Facenda died of cancer on September 26, 1984.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article John Facenda