Chevy Chase

• 1. Introduction

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  Chevy Chase opened a television career with a boast aimed squarely at the audience: "I'm Chevy Chase… and you're not." That one line made the American comedian, actor and writer a household name in the mid-1970s. It also announced a persona that was half charm and half provocation, and that persona has trailed him ever since.

  He came from a family of artists, musicians and heirs, yet by his own later account he spent his childhood afraid. He became the breakout face of a brand-new late-night show, then left it in the middle of its second season. In the following decade he headlined some of the most quoted comedies in American film.

  Then the hits dried up. A talk show collapsed, the roles got smaller, and a cult sitcom eventually handed him a second act.

  How did a prep-school prankster turn the pratfall into a profession? What did that career cost him, in his body and in his friendships? And why does a man so central to American comedy still say he was left out of its celebrations?

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• 2. A Blue-Blooded Childhood

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  Cornelius Crane Chase was born in Lower Manhattan on the 8th of October 1943 and grew up in Woodstock, New York. His first name honored his adoptive grandfather, Cornelius. His nickname came from his grandmother, who descended from the Scottish Clan Douglas and took the name from the English ballad "The Ballad of Chevy Chase." She thought it suited him.

  The family tree was crowded with talent. His father, Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase, was a Princeton-educated book editor and magazine writer. His paternal grandfather, Edward Leigh Chase, was an artist and illustrator. His mother, Cathalene, was a concert pianist and librettist, and her own mother was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall.

  The maternal side added wealth and war. Cathalene's father, Rear Admiral Miles Browning, served as chief of staff to Admiral Raymond A. Spruance aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise at the Battle of Midway. Cathalene was later adopted by her stepfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, heir to The Crane Company. Young Chase spent vacations at the Cranes' summer estate, Castle Hill, in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

  Money did not reach him, though. Chase has said that his adoptive grandfather left nothing to his mother when he died. His parents divorced when he was four. His father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, and his mother married twice more.

  In a 2007 biography, Chase described a darker home life. He said his mother and his stepfather, a psychoanalyst named Dr. John Cederquist, abused him physically and psychologically. "I lived in fear all the time, deathly fear," he said.

  He recalled being woken at night to be slapped repeatedly, being lashed across the backs of his legs, and being punched in the head. He also recalled being locked in a bedroom closet for hours. After a suspension from school at fourteen, he said, he was locked in a basement for several days.

  Both his mother and his father died in 2005, two years before that biography appeared.

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• 3. Prankster to Writer

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  The Riverdale Country School in the Bronx expelled Chase, but he still finished at the top of his class. In 1962 he graduated as valedictorian of the Stockbridge School, a boarding school in Massachusetts. Classmates knew him there as a practical joker, with an occasional mean streak.

  At Haverford College in the 1962-63 term, he became known for slapstick and absurd physical humor. His signature pratfalls were joined by stunts such as sticking forks into parts of his face. A famous legend says he was expelled for keeping a cow in his fourth-floor room. On the Today show in 2009 he seemed to confirm it. His former roommate David Felsen said in 2003 that Chase simply left for academic reasons.

  Chase then moved to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He studied a pre-med curriculum and graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He also played drums in a band called The Leather Canary. Its other two members were Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who went on to found Steely Dan. Chase later played drums and keyboards in another band, Chamaeleon Church, which recorded a single album for MGM Records before breaking up.

  Medical school never happened, which left him exposed to the military draft. He was not drafted. On the 1989 premiere week of The Pat Sajak Show he told a different story from the one a draft board would have expected. As that late-night show's first guest, he said he had earned a 4-F classification by falsely claiming "homosexual tendencies."

  Comedy came first as a sideline. In 1967 he co-founded an underground ensemble called Channel One. In 1970 he wrote a one-page Mission: Impossible spoof for Mad magazine. By 1973 he had made comedy a full-time job as a writer and cast member on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a syndicated satirical radio series.

  That radio show gathered a remarkable group. John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray all worked on it, and all later became the "Not-Ready-For-Prime Time Players." Chase and Belushi also appeared in the National Lampoon off-Broadway revue Lemmings, a send-up of youth culture. Chase played drums and piano in its musical numbers.

  In 1974 he appeared in The Groove Tube, a movie directed by his fellow Channel One co-founder Ken Shapiro and built partly from Channel One sketches. The new television show that his radio colleagues were about to join was first called NBC Saturday Night.

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• 4. Live From New York

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  October 1975 brought the premiere of Saturday Night Live, and Chase was among its original cast. His contract had committed him for just one year, as a writer. He became a performer during rehearsals, only shortly before the first broadcast.

  He opened every episode but two of that first season with the line "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Most nights it followed a tumble he called "The Fall of the Week." His physical comedy went further when he re-created a real stumble by President Gerald Ford, who tripped while leaving Air Force One in Salzburg, Austria. Chase's bumbling Ford became a favorite bit. It helped shape the public image of a clumsy president, even though Ford had been a star athlete at university. Chase later met Ford and became friendly with him.

  Chase was also the original anchor of Weekend Update. He signed off each night with "Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow," a line Jane Curtin and Tina Fey later revived. He wrote material for the segment as well. One routine, "The News for the Hard of Hearing," had Garrett Morris shouting each story back at the audience as Chase read it.

  Chase has claimed that his version of the segment inspired later news satire such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Weekend Update itself returned as a feature of The Chevy Chase Show, a short-lived late-night talk show he produced for the Fox network.

  The work earned him two Emmy Awards. In his acceptance speech he thanked Ernie Kovacs, the television pioneer whose influence he also discussed in the 1982 documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius.

  In February 2015 Rolling Stone ranked all 141 cast members to that date and placed Chase tenth in overall importance. "Strange as it sounds, Chase might be the most under-rated SNL player," the magazine wrote. It added that without his deadpan arrogance, the show's whole style of humor would fall flat.

  In 1975 a New York magazine cover story called him "The funniest man in America." NBC executives named him "the first real potential successor to Johnny Carson" and predicted he would guest-host The Tonight Show within six months. Chase brushed it off. "I'd never be tied down for five years interviewing TV personalities," he told the magazine.

  He did not appear on the program until the 4th of May 1977, to promote a prime-time special. Carson, who was never a fan of SNL, later said of him: "He couldn't ad-lib a fart after a baked-bean dinner."

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• 5. Leaving and Feuding

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  Jacqueline Carlin did not want to move to New York, and Chase says that was the main reason he left Saturday Night Live in late 1976. He was the second original cast member to go, after George Coe in the first season. Chase moved to Los Angeles and married Carlin on the 4th of December 1976. Bill Murray replaced him, and Chase made a few cameo appearances during that second season.

  Carlin was his second wife. He had married Susan Hewitt in New York City on the 23rd of February 1973, and they divorced on the 1st of February 1976. His marriage to Carlin ended in divorce on the 14th of November 1980, and the couple had no children.

  The marriage was the target when old friends clashed. In 1978 Chase returned to host the show. Before the broadcast, in John Belushi's dressing room, he got into a fistfight with Murray. Murray had reportedly made a cruel remark about Chase's troubled marriage, and Chase answered by criticizing Murray's physical appearance.

  The singer Billy Joel reportedly saw it, along with cast members Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner. Newman spoke about the fight on a talk show in 2021. "It was very sad and painful and awful," she said. She added that each man knew the one thing that would hurt the other most. Harold Ramis later helped the two reconcile.

  Chase hosted Saturday Night Live eight times between 1978 and 1997. Reports said that creator Lorne Michaels was shocked by his behavior in 1997 and banned him afterward. Michaels later disputed them and called the claims "idiotic." Chase has not hosted since, but he has kept returning in smaller ways.

  He took part in the show's 25th anniversary special in 1999, appeared as the Land Shark in a Weekend Update segment in 2001, and returned for another Update in 2007. In 2013 he joined Justin Timberlake's monologue as a member of the Five-Timers Club. There he was reunited with Steve Martin and Martin Short, his co-stars from a certain 1986 western comedy.

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• 6. Box Office Eighties

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  Chase turned down the role of Eric "Otter" Stratton in National Lampoon's Animal House, which had been written with him in mind. Tim Matheson took it instead. Chase chose Foul Play because it let him do what he called "real acting" for the first time, rather than just "schtick."

  The 1978 film earned more than $44 million and a Golden Globe nomination. Two years later he played Ty Webb in the Harold Ramis comedy Caddyshack. It took in $39 million against a $6 million budget, and it holds a 73% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics there called it "unabashedly crude and juvenile" but praised its slapstick, characters and quotable dialogue.

  That same year he reunited with Goldie Hawn for Neil Simon's Seems Like Old Times, which earned more than $43 million. He also released a self-titled record album, co-produced with Tom Scott. It mixed novelty and cover versions of songs by artists including Randy Newman, Barry White, Bob Marley and the Beatles.

  In 1983 he played Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's Vacation, directed by Ramis and written by John Hughes. It grossed $61 million on a $15 million budget, his biggest hit to that point.

  The year 1985 was crowded. Fletch, based on Gregory Mcdonald's novels, grossed more than $50 million on an $8 million budget. National Lampoon's European Vacation came in just shy of $50 million. Spies Like Us, with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd, made $60 million.

  The next year, Lorne Michaels produced ¡Three Amigos!, with Steve Martin and Martin Short alongside Chase. It made nearly $40 million. Chase said that making it was the most fun he ever had on a film. In 1986 he also lip-synced every lyric in Paul Simon's second video for "You Can Call Me Al." Simon was one of his best friends.

  In 1987 his company, Cornelius Productions, signed a first-refusal deal to develop four projects at Warner Bros. and set up a fifth at Universal. He hosted the Academy Awards in 1987 and 1988. He opened the 1988 telecast with the line "Good evening, Hollywood phonies!"

  Not everything worked. Funny Farm earned a solid $25 million in 1988, but Caddyshack II made less than $12 million, one of his few flops of the decade. Then came 1989. Fletch Lives grossed more than $35 million, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation pulled in $71 million. Its holiday theme made it one of his most durable films. By then Chase was earning around $7 million per film.

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• 7. Flops and Revival

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  In the summer of 1991, Chase played saxophone at Paul Simon's free concert on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Later that year he helped record and appear in "Voices That Care," a music video supporting American troops in Operation Desert Storm and the International Red Cross.

  His film luck turned the same year. Nothing but Trouble, which drew a Razzie nomination, was followed by Memoirs of an Invisible Man in 1992 and Cops & Robbersons in 1994. Together the three films grossed $34 million in the United States.

  In September 1993 Fox gave him a weeknight talk show, The Chevy Chase Show, with high commercial hopes. The network canceled it after five weeks. Chase later poked fun at the failure in a Doritos commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.

  Honors kept arriving anyway. He was Hasty Pudding's Man of the Year in 1993 and received a star at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard on the 23rd of September that year. The Harvard Lampoon gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, and Palm Springs dedicated a Golden Palm Star to him in 1998.

  Some films did well. Man of the House, with Farrah Fawcett, grossed $40 million in 1995. Vegas Vacation, his fourth Vacation picture, took $36.4 million in 1997. Snow Day topped $60 million in 2000, and Orange County passed $40 million in 2002.

  In 2002 the New York Friars Club roasted him for a Comedy Central special. Observers noted that it was unusually vitriolic, even by roast standards. Several later films, including Vacuums, Rent-a-Husband and Goose!, never had a wide release in the United States.

  In 2006 Chase returned to mainstream filmmaking with Zoom, co-starring Tim Allen and Courteney Cox. It failed with critics and audiences. That November he guest-starred on Law & Order as an anti-Semitic murder suspect. He also played a former love interest of Sally Field's character on Brothers & Sisters, and the villainous software magnate Ted Roark on Chuck.

  In 2009 he came home to NBC with Community, playing aging moist-towelette tycoon Pierce Hawthorne. Dan Harmon created the show, and Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Donald Glover, Danny Pudi and Yvette Nicole Brown starred in it. It earned critical praise, appeared on many year-end best-of lists and built a cult following. The New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley called Chase "farcically loopy and delightful in the pilot."

  The relationship soured. Chase grew uncomfortable with where Pierce's story was going and clashed increasingly with Harmon. In 2012 he lashed out on set, complaining about his character's written bigotry and yelling that he might soon be asked to use a racial slur against two fellow cast members. He apologized.

  He then left the show by mutual agreement with the network, and the remaining fourth-season episodes were written around his absence. Chase later said the real reason was that the show "wasn't funny enough." The writers killed off Pierce in the third episode of the fifth season.

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• 8. The Toll and the Tribute

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  During the filming of Modern Problems, a malfunction sent an electric current through Chase's arm, back and neck muscles. The scene had his character wearing "landing lights" while dreaming he was an airplane. He narrowly escaped death. The accident came just after his marriage to Carlin ended, and he went through a period of deep depression.

  In 1982 he married Jayni Luke in Pacific Palisades, on the 19th of June. They have three daughters and now live in Bedford, New York. From 1980 to 1995 the family home was a Tudor-style house in Pacific Palisades, and Chase served as that neighborhood's honorary mayor from 1986 to 1988.

  His body kept paying for the work. In 1986 he entered the Betty Ford Center for an addiction to prescription painkillers. His use had begun with the chronic back pain caused by the pratfalls he took on Saturday Night Live. In 2010 he described his drug abuse as "low level." In September 2016 he entered the Hazelden Clinic for treatment of alcoholism.

  In 2021 heart failure put him into a medically induced coma for eight days, followed by five weeks in the hospital. At the time it was announced only as undisclosed issues with his heart. Chase has said the coma left him with memory loss.

  The working years continued. In 2015 he returned as Clark Griswold in Vacation, the fifth film in that series. He appears only briefly, though at a pivotal moment, and the film grossed over $107 million worldwide despite largely negative reviews. In 2019 he appeared in the Netflix movie The Last Laugh, starring Richard Dreyfuss. In 2024 he starred with Randy Quaid and Brian Doyle-Murray in The Christmas Letter.

  The 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, in 2025, brought a sting. Chase was excluded from a role in the special and said he felt hurt. "I expected that I would've been on the stage too with all the other actors," he said. When Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman walked out, he wondered why he had not. "No one asked me to. Why was I left aside?"

  CNN has made him the subject of a 2026 documentary, I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not.

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