Chevy Chase

For other uses, see Chevy Chase (disambiguation).

Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase at the 1990 Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.
Born	Cornelius Crane Chase
Height	6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)

Cornelius Crane Chase (born October 8 1943 in New York City), also known as Chevy Chase, is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor. Born into a prominent New York family, Chase became a sensation as a cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live and in the 1980 film Caddyshack. He also hosted the Academy Awards twice and briefly had his own late-night talk show.

Early life and career

Chase was born in Manhattan to Edward Tinsley ("Ned") Chase, a prominent Manhattan book editor and magazine writer, and Cathalene Parker Browning, daughter of Admiral Miles Browning, who had a large role in the Battle of Midway. Cathalene Browning, a concert pianist, was adopted as a child by Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, and took the name Cathalene Crane. Her mother was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall. Chase is a 14th-generation New Yorker and was listed in the Social Register at an early age. His mother's ancestors arrived at Manhattan starting in 1624. Among his ancestors are New York City mayors Stephanus Van Cortlandt and John Johnstone, John Morin Scott (General of the New York Militia under George Washington during the American Revolution), and Anne Hutchinson, dissident Puritan preacher and pioneer. Chevy's paternal granduncle was painter/teacher Frank Swift Chase.

Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather Cornelius, who lived at Castle Hill, Ipswich, Massachusetts. Castle Hill, which was later used in the filming of The Witches of Eastwick, served as a vacation home for the toddler during the first years of his life. The name "Chevy" was a nickname bestowed by his grandmother. As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, who repelled an English invasion at the Battle of Cheviot Hills ("Chevy Chase") in 1436, the name "Chevy" seemed appropriate to her. Chase's parents divorced when he was four; his father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, and his mother married twice more. Both parents died in 2005. His mother is buried, along with other family members, at the Artist's Cemetery in Woodstock, New York.

Chase was a persistent class clown, and was expelled from private schools like New York City's Dalton School and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He did well at Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and attended Riverdale Country School in New York City. He was valedictorian of his senior class and entered Haverford College but was expelled (or 'separated') from it after one semester. He then transferred to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he studied a pre-med curriculum, dated actress Blythe Danner for several years, and graduated in 1967 with a bachelor of arts degree in English.

Chase did not enter medical school, and instead played drums for a time with the college band The Leather Canary, headed by school chums Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. At the time, Chase called the group "a bad jazz band," but Becker and Fagen went on to success after they changed their band's name to Steely Dan. Chase is gifted with absolute pitch, and played drums and keyboards for a rock band called Chameleon Church, which recorded one album before disbanding in 1968. Before becoming famous as a writer, actor and comedian, Chase worked in many jobs including as a cab driver, truck driver, motorcycle messenger, construction worker, fruit picker, waiter/bus boy, produce manager of a supermarket, audio engineer, salesman in a wine store, and a theater usher.

Saturday Night Live

File:Weekendupdate2.jpg

Chase doing his signature Weekend Update sketch

Chase became famous in 1975 as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live, NBC's latenight weekend television show. Chase was the original anchor for the Weekend Update segment, which he developed himself, beginning it with the catch phrase "I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." He also had a recurring gag as the Landshark. He was the first member of the "Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players" to be injured (doing a pratfall on a unpadded podium, which bruised a testicle and forced him to broadcast segments live from his hospital bed during the next two shows). Another trademark was his pratfalls during many of the show's opening skits, which often poked fun at President Gerald Ford. Chase opened most SNL shows with "The Fall of the Week," after which he would exclaim "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Rival network ABC got to the name "Saturday Night Live" first with its short-lived variety show hosted by Howard Cosell. NBC simply called their show "Saturday Night" initially, then kept Chase's familiar introduction after assuming the name Saturday Night Live later in 1975.

In a 1975 New York Magazine cover story which called him "The funniest man in America", NBC executives referred to Chase as "The first real potential successor to Johnny Carson" and claimed he would begin guest-hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson within six months of the article. Chase went on to guest-host The Tonight Show on many occasions and was even labeled "the next Cary Grant," a label to which he took exception. He was the first breakout star of SNL---he was also the only cast member who actually identified himself by name in the first season, in the "Update" sketches, which only helped his immediate visibility. Chase was committed contractually to Saturday Night Live for only one year – as a writer, not an SNL cast member. He had signed a one year writing contract and became a cast member during rehearsals just before the show's premiere. Nonetheless, he received two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his comedy writing and live comic acting.

Chase was the first member of the original SNL cast to leave the show, in 1976, and has said that he regrets leaving after just one year. However, Chase was never friendly with most of the cast – a rivalry with John Belushi went all the way back to their work on the National Lampoon radio show. By the time he left, early in the second season, Chase couldn't even get along with Lorne Michaels, the show's creator and producer.

Chase was eventually replaced by Bill Murray, who got into a legendary backstage brawl with Chase moments before Chase's scheduled 1978 hosting stint on SNL. Witnesses report that Murray initially provoked Chase about his "hated" status on the show, leading Chase to make fun of Murray's bad skin condition (comparing it to the surface of the moon). Fellow Not Ready For Prime Time Player Laraine Newman, discussing the incident for authors Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller in their history of the show, Live From New York, said Murray took a shot at Chase's reported marital problems, Newman quoting Murray as saying, "Why don't you fuck your wife once in awhile?" The two men were pulled apart by Dan Aykroyd and Belushi, who some credit with angering Murray in the first place. Though the altercation occurred off the air, the story became so widely known that Chase and Murray dueted together during Chase's next hosting appearance, singing a "unity" medley including "We Write the Songs," "We Can't Get No Satisfaction," "We Shot the Sheriff" and "We Are the Walrus." Chase claims he and Murray have long since buried the hatchet on the incident. After leaving SNL, Chase moved to Los Angeles and married his girlfriend, Jacqueline Carlin.

Chase hosted SNL nine times after he left but was banned from ever hosting the show again after the February 15, 1997 episode, due to his verbal abuse of the cast and crew during the week. Chase's rudeness to SNL cast members became legendary, particularly after his 1985 remarks to openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney suggesting that a perfect skit for Sweeney would be one in which Sweeney would play an AIDS victim who gets weighed every week. Although Chase has not hosted the show since 1997, he appeared on the show's 25th anniversary special in 1999 and was interviewed for a 2005 NBC special on SNL's first five years.

To this day, Chase admits that leaving SNL that soon was the biggest mistake of his career. He said as much when he appeared at the unveiling of Lorne Michaels's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. To Shales and Miller he put it this way: "I'm still hurting, I still grieve for all those years that I could have had there."

Film career

Among Chase's early film roles were Tunnel Vision, Foul Play, and Oh Heavenly Dog. The role of Eric 'Otter' Stratton in National Lampoon's Animal House was originally written with Chase in mind, but he turned the role down to work on Foul Play. Chase said in an interview that he chose to do Foul Play so he could do real acting for the first time in his career instead of just doing schtick. The role went to Tim Matheson instead. Chase followed Foul Play with the successful Harold Ramis comedy Caddyshack, in 1980.

Chase narrowly escaped electrocution during the filming of Modern Problems in 1980. During a sequence in which Chase's character wears 'landing lights' as he dreams that he is an airplane, the current in the lights short-circuited and arced through Chase's arm, back, and neck muscles. The near-death episode caused Chase to experience a period of deep depression, as his marriage to Jacqueline had ended just prior to the start of filming. Chase continued his film career in 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation, directed by Ramis and written by John Hughes. He married Jaynie Luke in 1983, and in 1985, he starred in Fletch, the first of two films based on Gregory Mcdonald's Fletch books. Chase joined SNL veterans Steve Martin and Martin Short in the Lorne Michaels-produced comedy ¡Three Amigos! in 1986, admitting in an interview that making ¡Three Amigos! was the most fun he has had on a film. The trio hosted SNL that year, the only time the show has had three hosts on one show.

At the height of his career in the late 1980s, Chase earned around $7 million per film and was a highly visible celebrity. He appeared alongside Paul Simon, one of his best friends, in Simon's 1986 video for "You Can Call Me Al," in which he lip-syncs all of Simon's lines. Chase hosted the Academy Awards in 1987 and 1988, signing on to the proceedings in 1987 with the memorable opener, "Good evening, Hollywood phonies!" Chase filmed a second sequel to Vacation, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, in 1989, and played saxophone onstage at Simon's free concert at the Great Lawn in Central Park in the summer of 1991. Later in 1991, he helped record and appeared in the music video "Voices That Care" to entertain and support US troops involved in Operation Desert Storm, and supported the International Red Cross.

Later work

Chase was a bonafide star from the late 1970s through the 1980s, but his career took a downturn in the 1990s. Few of Chase's subsequent films have been able to duplicate the critical or commercial success of his early career. As fellow SNL personality Paul Shaffer later joked, "You made us laugh so much. And then you inexplicably stopped, in about 1978."[1] Chase had three consecutive film flops from his later period: 1991's Razzie award-nominated Nothing But Trouble, 1992's Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and 1994's Cops and Robbersons. The three releases grossed $34 million in the U.S., combined. Even the durable Vacation series ground to a halt, following 1997's Vegas Vacation installment, the only one without the National Lampoon imprimatur. Some of the more recent movies starring Chase (e.g., Vacuums, Rent-a-Husband, Goose!) have not been released in the United States.

In September 1993, Chase hosted The Chevy Chase Show, a weeknight talk show, for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show was cancelled by FOX after only five weeks, and remains one of the most infamous failures in the history of broadcast television. Chase later appeared in a commercial for Doritos, airing during the Super Bowl, in which he made humorous reference to the show. The Chevy Chase Show is often referred to as "The Edsel of Television". He was Hasty Pudding's 1993 Man Of The Year, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994. He starred with Farrah Fawcett and many precocious kids in Man of the House, which immortalized the YMCA Indian Guides program in 1995, and received Harvard Lampoon's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

Chase visited Cuba in the late 1990s, and afterward former Cuban intelligence officer Delfin Fernandez said that Chase's room was bugged with both video and audio recording devices. Later at Earth Day 2000 in Washington, D.C., Chase deadpanned, "Socialism works. I think Cuba can prove that." He was roasted by the Friars Club in 2002, but the occasion was notable for the near-total disconnect between Chase's career and the list of performers who agreed to appear. In 2005, Chase was the keynote speaker at Princeton University's Class Day, part of commencement activities for the graduating class of 2005. Though he mentioned that he "left his written speech on the corner of the bathtub at home," he spoke for about fifteen minutes about sense of humor and the perspective on life that it creates, while also proclaiming, "I strapped my dong down this morning," and discussing deleted scenes from the movie Dirty Work. Chase returned to mainstream movie-making in 2006, co-starring with Tim Allen and Courteney Cox in the comedy Zoom.

Chase is an active environmentalist and charity fundraiser. He raised money and campaigned for Bill Clinton in the 1990s and John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election. Chase has attacked President George W. Bush with comments like, "This guy in office is an uneducated, real lying schmuck... and we still couldn't beat him with a bore like Kerry." In the same speech he stunned the crowd at a People For the American Way benefit at the Kennedy Center, referring to the President as a "dumb fuck". Even Bush detractors present at the event distanced themselves from Chase's comments, with Norman Lear remarking, "he'll live with it, I won't".[2]

Chase will be in an Episode of Law and Order in the Seventeenth season. The episode is supposedly based on Mel Gibson's trouble in 2006. On the set, Chase said to several witnesses that he was "retired" from filmmaking and that he was "allergic to dogs", despite owning a Westie at home.

Chase is the father of three girls, Cydney, Caley, and Emily. He lives with his wife, Jaynie, in New York.

Trivia

• At 6'4", he was the tallest original cast member of Saturday Night Live.
• Chase is a member of the Hollywood Gourmet Poker Club of fellow card players Martin Short, Steve Martin, Carl Reiner, Barry Diller and Neil Simon.
• He likes people to enjoy his work, but dislikes the lack of privacy in show business.
• Runs five miles every day, and suffers from a fear of snakes.
• He was sued by Cary Grant for quipping that Grant was a "homo" during a talk show appearance. The case was settled out of court.
• Chevy Chase was offered the role of Lester Burnham in the film American Beauty but pulled out, saying he wanted to do only family movies. (Kevin Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Actor in the role.)
• Chase reportedly walked out during post-production of Caddyshack II after mumbling to the director to notify him when they had dubbed in the laugh track.

Filmography

• Walk... Don't Walk (1968) (short subject)
• The Groove Tube (1974)
• Tunnel Vision (1976)
• Foul Play (1978)
• Oh Heavenly Dog (1980)
• Caddyshack (1980)
• Seems Like Old Times (1980)
• Under the Rainbow (1981)
• Modern Problems (1981)
• National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
• Deal of the Century (1983)
• Fletch (1985)
• National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)
• Spies Like Us (1985)
• Three Amigos (1986)
• The Couch Trip (1988)
• Funny Farm (1988)
• Caddyshack II (1988)
• Fletch Lives (1989)
• Christmas Vacation (1989)
• Nothing But Trouble (1991)
• Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
• A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
• Cops and Robbersons (1994)
• Man of the House (1995)
• Vegas Vacation (1997)
• Dirty Work (1998)
• Snow Day (2000)
• Vacuums (2002)
• Orange County (2002)
• Bad Meat (2003)
• Bitter Jester (2003) (documentary)
• Rent-a-Husband (2004)
• Goose! (2004)
• Funny Money (2005)
• Ellie Parker (2005)
• Your Mom (2006)
• Zoom (2006)

Further reading

• Who's Who in Comedy by Ronald L. Smith. Pg. 102-103. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0-8160-2338-7.
• Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. Back Bay Books.

External links

• Chevy Chase at IMDb
• The Chevy Chase Show - Jump The Shark.com
• Fansite of Chevy as "Fletch"
• Chevy Chase Central
• World's Largest Online Chevy Photo Gallery
• Short Bio
• Interviewed by his daughter
• discography