Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase ( ; born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975–1976), where his recurring Weekend Update segment became a staple of the show. As both a performer and a writer on the series, he earned two Primetime Emmy Awards out of four nominations.
After leaving Saturday Night Live early in its second season, Chase established himself as a leading man, starring in some of the most successful comedy films of the 1980s, starting with his Golden Globe-nominated role in the romantic comedy Foul Play (1978). Most famously in the 1980s, he portrayed Ty Webb in Caddyshack (1980), Clark Griswold in five National Lampoon's Vacation films from 1983 to 2015, and Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher in Fletch (1985) and Fletch Lives (1989). He also starred in Seems Like Old Times (1980), Spies Like Us (1985), ¡Three Amigos! (1986), and Funny Farm (1988). He hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988). After a string of flops in the 1990s, Chase's career dwindled until he had a popularity resurgence with his role as Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2014).
Cornelius Crane Chase was born in Lower Manhattan on October 8, 1943, and grew up in Woodstock, New York. He has an older brother, Ned Jr.
His father, Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase (1919–2005), was a book editor and magazine writer. Chase's paternal grandfather was artist and illustrator Edward Leigh Chase, and his granduncle was painter and teacher Frank Swift Chase. His mother, Cathalene Parker (née Browning; 1923–2005), was a concert pianist and librettist. Cathalene was adopted as a child by her stepfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, heir to The Crane Company, and took the name Cathalene Crane. Her mother, also named Cathalene, was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall. Chase's maternal grandfather was Rear Admiral Miles Browning, who served on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise at the Battle of Midway in World War II.
Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather, Cornelius, while the nickname "Chevy" was bestowed by his grandmother from the English ballad "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, she thought the name appropriate.
Early life, family and education
As a child, Chase vacationed at Castle Hill, the Cranes' summer estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Chase's parents divorced when he was four; his father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, and his mother remarried twice. He has stated that he grew up in an upper middle class environment and that his adoptive maternal grandfather did not bequeath any assets to Chase's mother when he died. In a 2007 biography, Chase stated that he was physically and psychologically abused as a child by his mother and stepfather, Dr. John Cederquist, a psychoanalyst. In that biography, he said, "I lived in fear all the time, deathly fear." Abuse he was subjected to as a child included being awakened in the middle of the night by his mother to be slapped repeatedly across the face, lashes to the backs of his legs, punches to the head by his stepfather, and being locked in a bedroom closet for hours. As a punishment for being suspended from school at the age of 14, Chase was locked in a basement for several days. Both of his parents died in 2005.
Chase was educated at Riverdale Country School, an independent day school in the Riverdale neighborhood of The Bronx, New York City, before being expelled. He ultimately graduated as valedictorian in 1962 from the Stockbridge School, an independent boarding school near the Interlaken section of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. At Stockbridge, he was known as a practical joker with an occasional mean streak. He attended Haverford College during the 1962–1963 term, where he was noted for slapstick comedy and an absurd sense of physical humor, including his signature pratfalls and "sticking forks into his orifices". During a 2009 interview on the Today show, he ostensibly verified the oft-publicized urban legend that he was expelled for harboring a cow in his fourth floor room, although his former roommate David Felsen asserted in a 2003 interview that Chase left for academic reasons. Chase transferred to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he studied a pre-med curriculum and graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. While at Bard, Chase played drums in a band called The Leather Canary. The other two members, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, went on to found Steely Dan. Additionally, he played drums and keyboards for a band, Chamaeleon Church. They recorded one album for MGM Records before disbanding.
Chase did not enter medical school, which meant he was subject to the military draft. Chase was not drafted, and when he appeared in January 1989 as the first guest of the just-launched late-night The Pat Sajak Show, he said he had tricked his draft board into believing he deserved a 4-F classification by falsely claiming that he had "homosexual tendencies".
Chase was a member of an early underground comedy ensemble called Channel One, which he co-founded in 1967. He also wrote a one-page spoof of Mission: Impossible for Mad magazine in 1970 and was a writer for the short-lived Smothers Brothers TV show comeback in the spring of 1975. Chase made the move to comedy as a full-time career by 1973, when he became a writer and cast member of The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a syndicated satirical radio series. The National Lampoon Radio Hour also featured John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray, all of whom later became the "Not-Ready-For-Prime Time Players" on NBC Saturday Night (later re-titled NBC's Saturday Night and finally Saturday Night Live). Chase and Belushi also appeared in National Lampoon's off-Broadway revue Lemmings, a sketch and musical send-up of popular youth culture, in which Chase also played the drums and piano during the musical numbers. He appeared in the movie The Groove Tube (1974), which was directed by another co-founder of Channel One, Ken Shapiro, featuring several Channel One sketches.
1975–1976: Saturday Night Live
Chase was one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL), NBC's late-night comedy television show, beginning in October 1975. During the first season, he introduced every show except two, with "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" The remark was often preceded by a pratfall, known as "The Fall of the Week". Chase became known for his skill at physical comedy. In one comedy sketch, he mimicked a real-life incident in which President Gerald Ford accidentally tripped while disembarking from Air Force One in Salzburg, Austria. This portrayal of President Ford as a bumbling klutz became a favorite device of Chase's, and helped form the popular concept of Ford as being a clumsy man despite Ford having been a "star athlete" during his university years. In later years, Chase met and became friendly with President Ford.
Chase was the original anchor for the Weekend Update segment of SNL, and his catchphrase introduction, "I'm Chevy Chase… and you're not," became well known. His trademark conclusion, "Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow," was later resurrected by Jane Curtin and Tina Fey. Chase also wrote comedy material for Weekend Update. For example, he wrote and performed "The News for the Hard of Hearing". In this skit, Chase read the top story of the day, aided by Garrett Morris, who repeated the story by loudly shouting it. Chase claimed that his version of Weekend Update was the inspiration for later news satire shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Weekend Update was later revived as a segment on The Chevy Chase Show, a short-lived late-night talk show produced by Chase and broadcast by Fox Broadcasting Company.
Chase was committed contractually to SNL for only one year as a writer and became a cast member during rehearsals just before the show's premiere. He received two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his comedy writing and live comic acting on the show. In Rolling Stone's February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to date, Chase was ranked tenth in overall importance. "Strange as it sounds, Chase might be the most under-rated SNL player," they wrote. "It took him only one season to define the franchise…without that deadpan arrogance, the whole SNL style of humor would fall flat."