Darrell Hammond

Darrell Clayton Hammond was born on October 8, 1955, in Melbourne, Florida, the son of Margaret and Max Hammond. His childhood was marked by severe abuse at the hands of his mother, which contributed to lifelong struggles with depression and substance abuse. His father, who had served in the military during World War II, dealt with his own psychological difficulties and frequently drank heavily. Hammond discovered early in life that performing impressions was the one activity his mother responded to positively.

Hammond played baseball in high school and at Brevard Community College, where one of his teammates was Bruce Bochy, who later managed the San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, and Texas Rangers. He went on to earn a degree in advertising from the University of Florida in 1978, and credits theater professor David Shelton there with encouraging his performance work. After graduating, Hammond relocated to New York City, where he waited tables, studied at HB Studio, appeared in theater productions, and performed stand-up comedy. He subsequently returned to Florida, working as a radio DJ at BJ 105 FM and as a voiceover artist in the Orlando area.

At age 32, Hammond moved back to New York for another attempt at a stand-up career. After seven years and two unsuccessful Saturday Night Live auditions, he was spotted in 1995 by an SNL producer while performing a Bill Clinton impression — a timely discovery, as Phil Hartman, who had regularly portrayed Clinton on the show, had recently departed. Following a private audition for creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels, Hammond joined the cast and remained a repertory player for 14 seasons, a record that stood until Kenan Thompson surpassed it in 2017. At the time of his departure in 2009, Hammond, at 53, was the oldest cast member in the show's history. He also holds the record for having delivered the show's opening line, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!," more times than any other cast member, doing so on 76 occasions, surpassing Dana Carvey's previous record.

Hammond became known on SNL for an extensive range of celebrity impressions, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Donald Trump, John McCain, Dick Cheney, Regis Philbin, Chris Matthews, Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Dreyfuss, Phil Donahue, Phil McGraw, Ted Koppel, John Travolta, Jesse Jackson, Geraldo Rivera, Dan Rather, and Sean Connery in the recurring "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketches. His Clinton impression, performed across 87 sketches over his 14 years in the cast plus numerous additional cameos, represents the most times any SNL cast member has performed a single impression. He also occasionally filled in for announcer Don Pardo when Pardo was unavailable, doing an impression of Pardo in that capacity. In total, Hammond performed impressions of more than 107 celebrities during his tenure, the second-highest count in the show's history behind Thompson.

Hammond had initially planned to leave SNL after season 31, but was advised by those around him, including his then-manager Bernie Brillstein, to remain. He has described his final three seasons as a difficult period, noting that writers who had crafted material for him had left the show and that he was not assigned roles within the incoming Obama administration. After the conclusion of the 34th season, he retired from the cast, becoming the last SNL cast member from the 1990s to leave the show.

In September 2014, Hammond was announced as SNL's new announcer, succeeding Don Pardo, who had died the previous month. Michaels instructed Hammond not to directly imitate Pardo's voice, so Hammond used his own voice for the role. Since taking on the announcer position, he has also reprised his Clinton and Trump impressions in various sketches. When Trump began performing strongly in the Republican primaries, Hammond returned to the show to reprise the Trump impression, but Michaels ultimately chose Alec Baldwin for the role during the 2016 election cycle.

In the summer of 2007, Hammond made his Broadway debut, playing Vice Principal Douglas Panch in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Outside of Broadway and SNL, his television work includes guest appearances on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Damages, Criminal Minds, and At Home with Amy Sedaris. He had a stand-up special on Comedy Central and has been a frequent presence at The Comedy Cellar in New York City. In the late 1980s, he gained attention among comedy audiences for a single called "Wappin'," which featured impressions of Elmer Fudd and other Looney Tunes characters and was included on Dr. Demento's 20th-anniversary compilation. Beginning in May 2015, Hammond portrayed Colonel Sanders in a KFC advertising campaign until Norm Macdonald replaced him in August of that year.

Hammond married Elizabeth on May 9, 1990. The couple divorced in the early 1990s, remarried in 1997, and have a daughter together. Their second divorce was finalized in 2012. Hammond has spoken publicly about his struggles with alcoholism and cocaine addiction, including a relapse following the death of a close friend in 1991 and another relapse in 2009 that led to a period of rehabilitation. In a 2011 CNN interview, he disclosed the childhood abuse he suffered and described the resulting anxiety, self-harm, multiple hospitalizations, and a series of psychiatric diagnoses that eventually resolved into a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Hammond has stated that he was medicated throughout his time as an SNL cast member and that he was once taken from the studio to a psychiatric ward. He regularly wears all black as a tribute to a friend who died by suicide in 1992.