Born Cornelius Crane Chase, the actor known as Chevy Chase was born in 1943
to high-society New York parents. His father, Ned, was well-known in the publishing
field and worked for The New Yorker, and his mother was the heiress to British
wealth. Chevy Chase showed an early talent for music, and he went first to
Haverford College and then to Bard College, where he studied music and played
the drums. He released an album in 1968, but his music career never took off.
Instead, he had dabbled with writing for a comedy troupe, and that writing
pushed him to his first movie The Groove Tube.
From his wandering ways and hobby writing, Chevy Chase joined the crew of
Saturday Night Live, like many other popular comedians over the last 30 years.
One of the show’s original members and a rising star, Chase was known
for his “Weekend Update” and brilliant impersonations. Between
1974 and 1977, Chevy Chase won three Emmys. He finally left the cast of SNL
to work on movies. One of his earliest films, Foul Play, showed the promise
of the comedic actor.
Chase worked throughout the 1980s and 1990s on situational comedy movies,
such as the National Lampoon vacation movies. These films, a popular comedy
type in the 1980s, worked well for Chase at the time but eventually lost favor
with audiences. Chase also is known for playing in Caddyshack and Man of the
House, but many of his other movies died out without blowing away critics or
fans. Chase has worked on other projects as well, such as a late-night comedy
show that was unsuccessful. His latest works include the movie Snow Day and
on the hit television series Orange County. Chase is otherwise quiet, however,
and did not reach the level of superstardom that his early days on SNL predicted.
