Chevy Chase

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Chevy Chase bigraphy, stories - American comedian, writer, and television and film actor

Chevy Chase : biography

October 8, 1943 –

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase ( born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer, television actor and film actor. Born into a prominent New York family, Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy and began acting with National Lampoon. He quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit soon became a staple of the show. Chase is also well known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon’s Vacation films, and for his roles in other successful comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Fletch (1985), and ¡Three Amigos! (1986). He has hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988) and briefly had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. In 2009, he became a regular cast member (Pierce Hawthorne) on the NBC comedy series Community. Chase left the show in 2012, having already filmed most of the episodes in season 4.

Early life

Family

Chase was born in Lower Manhattan, New York City. His father, Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase, was a prominent Manhattan book editor and magazine writer. His mother, Cathalene Parker (née Browning), a concert pianist and librettist, was the daughter of Miles Browning, who served a critical role at the Battle of Midway in World War II; she was adopted as a child by her stepfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, heir to Crane Plumbing, and took the name Cathalene Crane. As a child, Chase vacationed at Castle Hill, the Cranes’ summer estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Chase’s paternal grandfather was artist/illustrator Edward Leigh Chase, and his great-uncle was painter/teacher Frank Swift Chase. Chase’s maternal grandmother was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall. Chase is descended from upstate New York Kanienkehaka, the Native Americans known as the Mohawks. Chase is a fourteenth-generation New Yorker, and was listed in the Social Register at an early age. His mother’s ancestors arrived in Manhattan starting in 1624. Among his ancestors are New York City mayors Stephanus Van Cortlandt and John Johnstone; John Morin Scott, General of the New York Militia during the American Revolution; Anne Hutchinson, dissident Puritan preacher and healer; and Mayflower passengers and signers of the Mayflower Compact, John Howland,Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase, Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase, Edward Leigh Chase, Charles Dennison Chase, Henry Seymour Chase, Jarvis Brown Chase, Paul Chase m. Betty Kinnicutt, John Kinnicutt m. Hannah Gorham, Jabez Gorham, Jr., Jabez Gorham, Sr., John Gorham m. Desire Howland, daughter of John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley. and the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, William Brewster. Says his brother John:

"[Chevy] once told me that people who defined themselves in terms of their ancestry were like potatoes – the best parts of them were underground. He disdained the pretension of my mother’s side of the family, as embodied by her mother, Cattie."

Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather Cornelius. The nickname Chevy was bestowed by his grandmother, derived from the medieval English The Ballad of Chevy Chase. As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, the name "Chevy" seemed appropriate to her.

Chase’s parents divorced when he was four; his father remarried into the Folgers coffee family, and his mother remarried twice. Both his parents died in 2005. Chase 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.Chase, Chevy, interview on Howard Stern Show, Sirius Satellite Radio, September 18, 2008. In a 2007 biography, Chase claims that he was abused as a child by his mother and stepfather, John Cederquist.

Schooling and music

Chase is a graduate of the Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He then attended Haverford College during the 1962-63 term, where he was noted for his absurd sense of physical humor (including his signature pratfalls and "sticking forks into his orifices"http://www.biconews.com/2003/10/28/prankly-speaking/); although Chase ostensibly verified the oft-publicized urban legend that he was expelled for harboring a cow in his fourth floor room during a 2009 interview on The Today Show,http://blogs.haverford.edu/haverblog/2009/10/08/happy-birthday-chevy-about-that-cow/ former roommate David Felson asserted in a 2003 interview that Chase left for academic reasons. He transferred to Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he studied a pre-med curriculum and graduated in 1967 with a B.A. in English.