Actors - Chevy Chase

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Chevy Chase

	Actors - Chevy Chase

Cornelius Crane Chase, better known as Chevy Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer and television and film actor.

Background

Early years

Chase was born in Woodstock, New York to Edward Tinsley Chase (better known as "Ned Chase"), a prominent Manhattan book editor and magazine writer, and Cathalene Crane, a member of the Crane plumbing fixture family; his paternal grandfather was painter/teacher Frank Swift Chase. His middle name, Crane, refers to Crane Castle, his childhood vacation home in Massachusetts, where he liked to spend his summer and other vacations at a castle on a beautiful beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Chevy was actually a childhood nickname -- possibly based on the Washington, D.C. suburb which is mostly in Maryland -- bestowed by his grandmother. The Chase family was affluent and distinguished, and Chevy was listed in the Social Register at an early age.

His parents divorced when he was four, and his father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, while his mother's third marriage was to Juilliard School professor/composer Lawrence Widdoes.

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, 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. (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.

The most elaborate prank that Chase is said to have arranged involves the streets that border the campus to the north and east. Late one evening, Chase and some friends went out, uprooted some traffic signs, and re-positioned them so as to divert all the traffic on Lancaster Avenue, a major public artery, through the college campus. Not only was the interior of the campus served solely by a winding one-lane road not intended for heavy traffic, but the road empties out on to Old Railroad Avenue, a narrow side road that connects Lancaster Avenue and Haverford Road (to the west of campus). The next morning, the campus was the site of an enormous traffic jam, extending from the Lancaster Avenue entrance through the whole of the campus road, as well as all of Old Railroad Avenue between Lancaster Avenue and Haverford Road. This prank, however, was not in fact Chase's, but is attributed to alumnus Clyde Lutton.

Aspirations

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

He was the drummer a couple of times for what he called "a bad jazz band" - the college band "The Leather Canary". The band also included Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. That band became Steely Dan. He has perfect pitch, which is a musical ability to remember the exact frequency of a note.

Career

Saturday Night Live

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 began with the catch phrase "I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not," a takeoff of New York news anchor Roger Grimsby's "Here now the news" opening line. Another trademark was his pratfalls during many of the opening skits, including making fun of Gerald Ford. He also had a recurring gag as the Landshark. He was the first cast member to be injured after doing his pratfall on a unpadded podium, which injured his testicles and caused him to miss two shows.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Chevy Chase ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Chevy Chase; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay