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Chevy Chase

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For other people or places with the same name, see Chevy Chase (disambiguation)
Chevy Chase
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Chevy Chase

Chevy Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer and television and film actor.

Contents

Background

Early years

Chase was born Cornelius Crane Chase to Edward Tinsley Chase (better known as "Ned Chase"), a prominent Manhattan book editor and magazine writer, and Cathalene Parker Browning, daughter of Admiral Miles Browning, famed of the WWII Battle of Midway, in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. (His mother was adopted as a child by Cornelius Crane, of the Crane plumbing family, and took the name Cathalene Crane; his paternal granduncle was painter/teacher Frank Swift Chase.)

He was named for his adoptive grandfather, who lived at Castle Hill, a huge old estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which was used in the filming of "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), and served as a childhood vacation home, along with his beloved Woodstock, New York.

The name Chevy was actually a nickname, bestowed by his grandmother upon hearing that if the child was a boy, his mother intended to name him Cornelius Crane Chase. Being a descendant of the Scottish Douglases, who repelled an English invasion at the Battle of Cheviot Hills ("Chevy Chase") in 1436, the name "Chevy" seemed appropriate.

His family was affluent and distinguished, and Chevy was listed in the Social Register at an early age. He is a 14th-generation New Yorker, his mother's ancestors arriving at Manhattan starting in 1624. Among his noted New York ancestry are two mayors (Stephanus Van Cortlandt and John Johnstone), as well as John Morin Scott (General of the New York Militia under George Washington during the American Revolution), and Anne Hutchinson, dissident Puritan preacher and pioneer, who was killed by Siwanoy natives in 1643 in what is now The Bronx, by the river which now bears her name.

His parents divorced when he was four. His father remarried into the Folgers coffee family. His mother married Manhattan doctor John Cederquist, MD (also a professor at Columbia Medical College), and 26 years later remarried with her third husband Juilliard School professor/composer Lawrence Widdoes. Both of his parents died in 2005, and his mother is buried, among other family, at the Artist's Cemetery in Woodstock, New York.

High school and College

Chevy Chase was the valedictorian of his high school class. He was a long-time class clown expelled from private schools like New York City's Dalton School and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, but did well at Stockbridge School in Massachusetts. He also attended Riverdale Country School in New York City. He 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 dated actress Blythe Danner and graduated in 1967.

Students at Haverford College tell several stories of elaborate pranks that Chase supposedly pulled during his short time there, some of which may be urban legends. As far as is known, none of these stories has been verified.

One is that Chase and some friends led a cow up to the fourth floor of his dormitory, Barclay Hall. Once there, the cow was stuck, because cows -- according to this particular story, at least -- cannot climb down stairs, but only up. Therefore, the college administration was forced to kill the cow, dismember it, and remove it in pieces from Barclay. In other versions of the story that are more in keeping with Haverford's nonviolent Quaker tradition, a crane is used to remove the cow from the dormitory. (This particular story bears similarities to legends told at other colleges and universities.)

Another of Chase's stunts is supposed to be a faked suicide. During Parents Visitation Weekend, he stuffed some of his clothes to create a scarecrow-like dummy. He sat the dummy on the sill of his open window in Barclay Hall, which overlooks Founders Green, the center of the campus. As students and parents milled around the green, Chase screamed, "I can't take it anymore!" and pushed the dummy out the window. People turned at the sound to see a human-like figure hit the pavement four stories below.

Aspirations

He really wanted to be a doctor and was pre-med in college. Besides a writer, actor and comedian, he was also a rock musician, a jazz drummer, a pianist, a New York City cab driver, truck driver and motorcycle messenger, a construction worker, fruit picker, waiter and bus boy, the head of produce in a Woodstock supermarket, an audio engineer, a salesman in a wine store and a theater usher.

He was the drummer for what he called "a bad jazz band" -- the college band "The Leather Canary", headed by school chums Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Becker and Fagen later changed their band's name to Steely Dan. He played drums and keyboards for a 60s rock band -- "Chameleon Church" -- which cut one LP album before disbanding. He has absolute pitch, which is a musical ability to remember the exact frequency of a note. (His mother was a concert pianist, and her mother was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall.)

Career

Saturday Night Live

Chase doing his signature Weekend Update sketch
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Chase doing his signature Weekend Update sketch

Chase is perhaps best known as one of the original cast members for NBC's Saturday Night Live television series from 1975 to 1976. 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 Gerald Ford. Chase opened most SNL shows with "The Fall of the Week," after which he would exclaim "Live from New York, this is Saturday Night!" (Rival network ABC had beaten NBC to the name "Saturday Night Live," which ABC called its short-lived variety show hosted by sportscaster Howard Cosell; NBC just called their show "Saturday Night" at first, then stuck to the familiar introduction which Chevy Chase made famous even 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 later in his career, and was even labeled "the next Cary Grant," a label he took exception to.

Immediately tagged by the media as the star of the show, and only signed to the show for one year, Chase left during the second season 1976 to pursue a career in film. Contrary to popular belief, he was never signed as a cast member. He had signed a one year writer contract and only became a cast member during rehearsals before the show's premiere. Nevertheless, he was awarded several Emmys and Golden Globe Awards for his writing and live comic acting.

Chevy was the first member of the original Saturday Night Live cast to leave the show, and has said that he regrets leaving after just one year. He was 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). This in turn inspired Murray to mock Chase's marital troubles, saying "Why don't you fuck your wife once in a while? She needs it." The two men were pulled apart by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who some credit with riling up Murray in the first place. Though the altercation occurred off the air, the story became so notorious 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 as a cast member, Chevy Chase hosted Saturday Night Live eight times. He 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 became notorious for his treatment of certain cast members when hosting past episodes, particularly his remarks to openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney in 1985 when he suggested that a perfect skit for Sweeney would be one in which Sweeney plays an AIDS victim who gets weighed every week. Chase's abusive behavior during the 1985 episode and others are detailed in the Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live book. Although Chase has not hosted the show since 1997, he appeared on the 25th anniversary special in 1999 and was interviewed for the 2005 special on the first five years at SNL.

Film

The role of Eric 'Otter' Stratton in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) was originally written with him 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 instead for the first time in his career instead of just doing schtick. The role went to Tim Matheson instead.

Some of Chase's other early film roles were Tunnel Vision (1976) and Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980). He followed these with the more successful Caddyshack (1980), and Modern Problems (1981), nearly being electrocuted during the filming, when, during the sequence in which he is wearing "landing lights" as he dreams that he is an airplane, the current in the lights short-circuited through his arm, back, and neck muscles. The near-death experience caused him to experience a period of deep depression. His career continued in 1983's National Lampoon's Vacation, directed by Harold Ramis and written by John Hughes. Chase's most enduring, if not endearing, film was the second sequel to Vacation, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), which has become a television perennial around the holidays. In 1985, he starred in Fletch, the first of two films based on Gregory Mcdonald's Fletch books.

In 1986, Chase joined SNL veterans Steve Martin and Martin Short in the Lorne Michaels produced comedy ¡Three Amigos!. He admitted in an interview that making ¡Three Amigos! (1986) was the most fun he has had on a film. The trio would host Saturday Night Live that year, the only time the show would have three hosts on one show.

At the height of his career he earned around $7 million per film.

Later years

A comedy star in the late 1970s and early-to-mid-1980s, Chase saw his career take a garish 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."

Chase's fanbase abandoned him, as illustrated by three consecutive film flops from his later period: 1991's Nothing But Trouble, 1992's Memoirs of an Invisible Man, and 1994's Cops & Robbersons. The three releases grossed a dreary $34 million in the U.S., combined. Even the durable Vacation series ground to a halt, following the apathy that greeted 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.

Chevy hosted the Academy Awards twice, signing on to the proceedings in 1987 with the memorable opener, "Good evening, Hollywood phonies!" The following year he hosted the 60th Anniversary show (1989).

He appeared alongside Paul Simon, one of his best friends, in the music video "You Can Call Me Al," in which he lip-syncs all of Simon's lines, and joined onstage at Simon's free concert at the Great Lawn in Central Park in the summer of 1991, playing saxophone with the band. Later that year, he helped record and appeared in the music video "Voices That Care" to help boost the morale of US troops involved in Operation Desert Storm, as well as supporting the International Red Cross organization.

In September 1993 he hosted a talk show, The Chevy Chase Show, for the FOX network. The show was cancelled by FOX after five weeks and remains one of the most notorious failures in the history of broadcast television. He later appeared in a Super Bowl Doritos commercial which made humorous reference to the show. The Chevy Chase Show is often referred to as "The Edsel of Television".

1995 saw Chase team up with Farrah Fawcett and many precocious kids in Man of the House, which immortalized the YMCA Indian Guides program. He was also convicted of drunk driving that same year.

Chevy was a winner of the Harvard Lampoon's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

When he visited Cuba, his room was bugged with both video and audio recording devices, says former Cuban intelligence officer Delfin Fernandez. 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 on September 28, 2002, though the occasion was notable for the near-total disconnect between the subject's career and the list of performers who agreed to appear. The televised version was considered so joyless and leaden that Comedy Central decided not to re-air the special again.

Chevy 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.

On May 30, 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."

In 2006, he returned to mainstream movie-making, co-starring with Tim Allen and Courtney Cox in the comedy Zoom.

Statements about President Bush

Chase has regularly 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".[link]

Quotes

From the book Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years, in Chevy Chase's own words:

"There was a guy named Roger Grimsby in New York. He used to say, 'Good evening, I'm Roger Grimsby, and here now the news.' And I never liked that use of that conjunction or the entire phrase afterward. 'Here now the news' — what the hell is that? Pretentious junk. Nothing against Roger Grimsby, but the use of it is sort of odd: 'Hi, I'm Roger Elgin, and the weather's nice, isn't it?' There was a pretension I didn't like. So I at some point — I usually winged these things — I went, 'I'm Chevy Chase and you're not.' I mean, I had nothing else to say."

Another Chase quote, from Live From New York: An Oral History of Saturday Night Live:

"On Weekend Update, I was being a newscaster; I was being Roger Grimsby, actually. You know, it came out of that: 'Good evening, I'm Roger Grimsby, and here now the news.' One of the strangest pieces of syntax I've ever heard in my life: "And here now the news." But I knew I should say something. And on the fourth show, it just came out: 'Good evening. I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." And that was it.'

Trivia

Filmography

References

External links

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