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Chevy Chase

Chevy Chase is an American actor, comedian and writer whose best-known screen work combines dry confidence, physical comedy and a knack for playing men who remain pleased with themselves while everything around them falls apart. Born in Lower Manhattan on October 8, 1943, Chase first became widely known as an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, where his pratfalls and deadpan delivery helped establish his comic persona. That persona translated naturally to the movies. In Caddyshack, Chase played the relaxed, faintly mysterious Ty Webb, while Seems Like Old Times and Modern Problems gave him further leading comedy work at the start of the 1980s. National Lampoon’s Vacation then introduced his Clark Griswold, a determined family man whose optimism tends to survive every humiliation. Chase returned as Clark in National Lampoon’s European Vacation and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, with the latter becoming an especially durable part of holiday viewing. Fletch offered a different showcase. As reporter Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher, Chase could lean into disguises, verbal games and an amused distance from everyone else in the room. He returned to the character in Fletch Lives. Between those films, he appeared alongside Dan Aykroyd in Spies Like Us and joined Steve Martin and Martin Short in Three Amigos, extending a run of comedies built around clashing personalities and escalating absurdity. Funny Farm placed Chase in another story of plans going stubbornly wrong, while his later appearance in Last Action Hero connected him to a movie already busy playing with Hollywood image and genre. Across these films, Chase’s screen presence is remarkably consistent: casual, cutting and often funniest when his characters believe they have the situation under control. His comedy can be broad, but the defining touch is usually the straight face he keeps as the trouble piles up.