♪
Downloaded from YTS.BZ
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ
- [child babbling] - [bell tolling]
[deep sniffing]
- Mm-mm. - MAN: I'm gonna swap
- this water out. - MARINA: Okay.
- What the fuck happened? - Go ahead,
enjoy your breakfast. Don't worry.
- Don't mind me. - Enjoy my breakfast?!
[laughter]
Jesus Christ.
I have eggs or-- or cereal every morning.
That's what keeps me a little overweight.
[laughing]
Here, Pat, take this for a second.
Hold onto it forever.
I think we're ready.
♪
You see, sir, we're not gunfighters.
We're movie stars.
MARTIN SHORT: He has this glint in his eye
that makes you feel that there's a big brain in there,
and it's ready to say something really funny,
or sarcastic, or edgy.
Listen, it's Glory, right?
You're a really nice girl,
and I'm a nice guy, and you're very pretty.
What do you say? Would you like to take a shower?
He didn't really have a lot of boundaries.
He was very, very free.
Drink this. And it's off to bed.
You should've been a doctor.
Okay, we'll play whatever you like.
His random lines just pop into my head all the time.
- You take drugs, Danny? - Every day.
- Good. - BEVERLY D'ANGELO: We always
had this chemistry that was just always there.
Would you like something to drink?
- Helen, you want something? - No, no, thank you.
- I'll have a Coke. - Do you want that in the can?
No, I'll have it right here.
And now, for those of our viewers
who may be Holsteins or Herefords,
our top story tonight...
[moo-ing]
I immediately fell in love with that bumbling idiot
doing Weekend Update.
I'm talking about Chevy, not the character he played.
I give you the Griswold family Christmas tree.
[crashing]
I spent most days in between scenes
in his trailer with him and his makeup artist Lee
listening to the filthiest jokes I have ever heard in my life.
Little kid in the fourth grade who says,
"Hey, Dad, I've got the biggest dick
in the fourth grade. Is that 'cause I'm Black?"
"No, son, that's 'cause you're 19."
- I mean, I don't know... - DAN AYKROYD: I could see,
you know, right away, this guy is,
you know, simultaneously talented
and very dangerous.
EMILY CHASE: He has this charisma.
The asshole who you love.
Can I say "asshole"? [laughing]
MARINA: A lot of people will, unfortunately.
- [laughter] - GENE SISKEL: Chevy Chase,
has he worn out his welcome in the entertainment world?
Yeah, he might've been nasty to other people,
but he-- he and I were like that.
KEVIN SMITH: You know, I was always kinda hoping in my heart,
it was like, "They don't get this guy,"
and when I met him, I understood perfectly
that everything I'd ever read was probably true.
CHEVY: Maybe you wanna come at me for a while.
The-- I will, Chevy--
No, no, come on, let's do it now--
no, come on, let's talk about my married life.
- I want you to-- - No, come on, man.
What about my shirt, you like it?
- Look, they're coming back-- - Quiet down.
- That shirt is coming back. - I'm talking, okay?
You like my shirt? Fuck you, fuckhead, okay?
How's that? Put that on tape.
ALAN GREISMAN: I don't think he consciously
wants to be an asshole.
I think what the asshole version of him...
is somebody who is desperate
for something he either lost
or doesn't have
or just getting old.
MARINA: I'm just trying to figure you out.
No shit.
It's not gonna be easy for you.
MARINA: Why is it not gonna be easy?
[coughing] You're not bright enough.
How's that?
- MARINA: Whoa. - Well, you asked.
I know you're not gonna put that on the air,
and I hope not,
but my answer is
I'm complex and I'm deep.
And I can be hurt easily,
and I react spontaneously
to people who want to figure me out, as it were.
As somebody who will hold up my guard.
I'm not gonna let anybody figure me out, per se.
["My Old School," Steely Dan]
♪ I remember ♪
♪ The 35 sweet goodbyes... ♪
PETER AARON: I first met Chevy
in the dining commons at Bard.
I noticed that there was
this buffoon at the table
that would do very peculiar things.
Reach for the salt and knock over a water
onto somebody's lap.
♪ To find you with the working girls ♪
♪ In the county jail ♪
PETER: Chevy often fell down flights of stairs,
and it wasn't by accident.
♪ To my old school... ♪
CHEVY: Don Fagen and Walter Becker,
we had a group in college called the Very Bad Jazz Band.
I was a drummer at the time.
As we emerged from college,
it was called Steely Dan.
I really knew jazz.
And I know what a great drummer is,
you know, and I said,
"Go get a good drummer," and I left.
♪
Blythe Danner, that was my first real love,
was Blythe.
She's a great woman,
and I'll always think highly of her.
NED CHEVY: Blythe and Chevy had different paths post-college.
Blythe is a very skilled actress,
and Blythe's career took off almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Chevy did not take off immediately.
PETER: The man's name was Cornelius Crane Chase.
Now, that kind of implies money.
But he sure had no money when I knew him.
I grew up in New York City in a wine family.
My father started a store called Sherry Lehmann.
My father loved Chevy.
When Chevy applied to Sherry Lehmann,
his application, he just makes fun of the questions.
"Have you committed any crimes?"
"No, because crime doesn't pay."
["Every Picture Tells a Story," Rod Stewart]
CHEVY: I drove a specific truck, delivering wines
from Sherry Lehmann Wines and Liquors.
♪ Combed my hair in a thousand ways ♪
My brother Peter has been friends with Chevy
since they went to Bard College together.
♪ Daddy said, "Son, you'd better see the world" ♪
ANDY: I remember when he would visit,
if I spent... eight hours with him,
I would be laughing for eight hours.
♪ But remember one thing, don't lose your head ♪
JOHN CEDERQUIST: Our great-grandfather...
passed away and left
an inheritance of, you know, I mean eight grand.
And Chevy took the whole amount
and went and bought a used Rolls-Royce.
Played big-wig in that.
♪
NED: He met a girl named Susan.
And they did get married.
And that lasted for a while.
MARINA: You've been married three times.
Jacqueline was the first.
MARINA: I thought there was someone before--
Oh, that's right.
Susan!
How could I forget?
Because I want to?
No, Susan and I were married for about four years.
♪ Whoo ♪
♪ Was knocked down by a human stampede ♪
♪ Got arrested for inciting a peaceful riot ♪
[car horns honking]
PETER: New York was filthy, dirty,
and there wasn't much prosperity
in the mere fact that we could live on Madison Avenue
and Chevy on Lexington.
It's just impossible now.
♪
His apartment was just horrible.
There were cockroaches everywhere.
♪ Gettin' enough... ♪
At that age, somehow we felt like we owned New York.
♪ Oh, my dear, I'd better get out of here ♪
♪
♪ 'fore the Vatican don't give no sanction ♪
♪ I wasn't ready for that, no, no ♪
♪
PETER: One day, I was walking home,
and I bumped into Chris Guest.
He said, "We're forming a humor and music group,
and the National Lampoon Lemmings is producing it.
Wondered if you knew anyone funny
who could also perform with an instrument?"
So I said, "Well, obviously, you know,
we went to Bard College together,
the three of us, Chevy is an obvious choice."
And he said, "Yeah, why don't you tell him
to come and try out, but...
he's not my favorite person."
He was well-liked by many people,
but others didn't get his sense of humor
and thought he was an asshole.
And so I went back to Chevy's, and I told him,
and Chevy said, "I don't know."
Susan said, "Get out of the bed
and go do something, you're so lazy."
♪
I used to say to Chevy, "You're not using
your God-given talents,"
so Chevy went down and tried out,
and, next thing you know,
National Lampoon Lemmings was formed,
and he was part of the troupe.
♪
VOICES: ♪ Whoa, Colorado's calling me ♪
- BELUSHI: Hey, dude! - [audience laughter]
VOICES: ♪ From her glaciers and her canyons ♪
- ♪ And her badlands... ♪ - PETER: I went every night,
because it was so funny.
[audience laughter]
CEDERQUIST: The first half of it was skits,
the second half was a lampooning
of the Woodstock Concert.
♪ Lonely at the bottom of the barrel ♪
CEDERQUIST: Chevy played piano, guitar, drums.
♪ I got into arts and crafts, lady got into leather ♪
CEDERQUIST: It was funny as heck to me.
Our mother went, like, once, and didn't go back.
♪ Oh...♪
[applause]
No, look at this baby.
Look at that.
Say "hi."
This is gonna be your audience later.
[smooching]
Oh, my goodness.
Isn't this the best cat?
[playing relaxed jazzy melody]
My mother is very musical.
She was a concert pianist.
She didn't follow up on it.
But I could hear her once in a while
playing something like Debussy
or Chopin or...
They had a beautiful touch.
Like notes of, like, a string with pearls.
CHEVY: I started playing the piano
'cause it was there, basically.
Tinkling on it and taught myself
over the last 50 years.
♪
I play by ear, and I don't read music.
My brother and I would listen to jazz a lot
on a 78 record player.
That's what sort of got me doing it,
you know, playing jazz.
It's improvisation, which is very close to acting.
[playing upbeat melody]
LORNE MICHAELS: Mel Brooks once defined comedy
as polite hostility.
Once you lose that, once you limit yourself
to saying, well, that's not funny,
or that can't be funny, or you can't do jokes on that,
then you've limited yourself to the point
where you're ineffective as a comedian.
Lorne Michaels, when he's given the job to develop a show
for Saturday nights, he's got a blank slate.
MICHAELS: I'd spent my 20s in a television studio,
so I was comfortable in that environment.
We were... just filled with possibility
of what we could do and what we couldn't do.
ALAN ZWEIBEL: When I met with Lorne,
he described this new show.
It spun my head around.
He said it would be live,
be 11:30 to 1:00 on Saturday night.
And I go, "What?!"
Who's gonna watch that? You know, angry people.
People who are not getting laid.
CHEVY: I got a call. Lorne said,
"Do you wanna start this show with me?"
MARINA: If you could try to look at me
instead of looking directly into camera,
- unless you-- - It's hard for me.
- Why? - Because I invented
Weekend Update so I could look in the camera.
Tell me about that.
[soft chuckle]
The fuck, man?
What the fucking shit, man?
[soft laughter]
MICHAELS: I wanted him to be a writer.
But he really wanted to be in the cast,
and I had room for only six people.
We had our final reading of the first script
with all of us around a big table,
and I did some reading.
He was funny in what I would describe
as the right kind of way,
and he had a level of confidence.
CHEVY: I think he saw that, given the cast,
that I could be the handsome one.
Live from New York, it's Saturday night!
- [clattering] - [audience laughter]
AYKROYD: I had heard of Chevy's reputation,
what a spectacular physical comedian he was,
how funny, how gifted, just masterful physical comedy.
- [clattering] - [audience laughter]
What's wrong with expressing our patriotism?
I'm proud to diaper my baby with the stars and the stripes,
or to stroll on the boardwalk
wearing an Old Glory leisure suit.
MILLER: Chevy winds up being the last one officially hired,
and, interesting point, does not sign a contract.
...so I can be reminded, again and again,
and again...
MILLER: Gives him a sense of freedom.
If you sign that contract, you're not going anywhere else.
I refer to saliva disbursement difficulties,
or as we are sometimes called, "droolers."
[audience laughter]
We at the Droolers Anti-Defamation League
are working to correct the negative image
of droolers propagated by the media.
MIKE OVITZ: When I saw "Saturday Night Live,"
it absolutely blew my doors off,
and I set out to sign everyone on the show.
No, New Shimmer is a dessert topping.
It's a floor wax!
It's a dessert topping!
It's a floor wax, I'm telling you--
It's a dessert topping, you cow!
Hey, hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two,
New Shimmer's a floor wax and a dessert topping.
[audience laughter]
MILLER: Automatically, he's markedly different.
Chevy doesn't really care about being liked.
You're doing very well so far.
- Thank you. - Everybody loves the show.
- The song was great, and... - Thank you.
...all I can say is relax and take your shirt off.
[audience laughter]
MILLER: All too soon, he's giving notes
to his other cast members.
MICHAELS: Danny came up to my office, he said,
"You gotta talk to Chase," and I said, "What?"
He said, "He gave me notes on my Scottish accent."
MILLER: That's not a great recipe
for being one of the gang.
ZWEIBEL: "Carol Burnett" was the big show at the time.
Won Emmy after Emmy.
Chevy or Lorne would say, "If you come up with an idea,"
the understanding was, "Okay, Carol Burnett would
do it this way, how are we gonna do it?"
It's just a word association, I'll throw you out a few words.
Anything that comes to your mind,
just throw back at me, okay, just kind of
an arbitrary thing, like if I said dog,
you'd say...
- Tree. - Tree.
JAY CHANDRASEKHAR: These little asides about
drugs and sex and race
and, you know, he sort of personified that--
that dangerous quality
that "Saturday Night Live" had at the time.
Negro.
- Whitey. - [audience laughter]
Tar baby.
[audience laughter]
What'd you say?
Lorne had said from the very beginning,
"Let's just make each other laugh,
and if we do that, we'll put it on television."
It was exciting, and it was terrifying.
- Spear-chucker. - White trash.
- Jungle bunny. - Honky!
[audience laughter]
- Spade! - Honky-honky!
[audience laughter]
- Nigger. - Dead honky.
[laughter and applause]
He became a writer for me.
I never asked him to do it.
He came in to say,
"Hey, I'm gonna write for your ass."
And now as a public service to those of our viewers
who have difficulty with their hearing,
- our top story tonight... - Our top story!
- President Ford is finally... - President Ford!
...over that stubborn week-long cold.
...over that stubborn! Week-long cold!
MORRIS: The news for the hard of hearing
is a piece that he came up with
which only he and I did.
HOST: And now, "Weekend Update"
with Chevy Chase.
No...
I love it when you make noise.
[audience laughter]
Remember when-- I gotta go.
[phone clinks]
Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not.
His delivery, "I'm Chevy Chase,
and you're not," you know, the arrogance
of the WASP-y upper class,
it worked perfectly for the acerbic tone
of Update.
Originally, he had a funny name for his character,
and I went, "No, just say your real name."
Two weeks late, that could be emotion.
[audience laughter]
Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it, okay?
Okay, goodbye, Barbara-- Margaret, I'm sorry.
[audience laughter]
Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not.
Lorne used to describe the ratings,
that it would start, and then would get a bump
at Weekend Update.
The President is seen here wearing a corsage
given to him at an artificial limb-maker's convention.
MILLER: Chevy had this runway in Weekend Update.
They created an environment where he could be himself.
That's when he starts to really make
a much larger impression.
♪
There was something that was so much just fun
about all the things that he would do,
and he was fearless.
Oh, hi.
I'm Ronald Reagan.
Oh, sure, I play the organ too.
[laughing]
PAUL SHAFFER: "Saturday Night Live" was
sort of an extension of '60s counter-culture,
and recreational drugs,
what can you say, they were--
they were absolutely everywhere at that time.
♪
ZWEIBEL: We started making money, and...
Tuesday became the late night on the show to write the scripts.
Because read-through was on Wednesday,
and to help stay up as we made money,
people were doing drugs.
[phone ringing]
- Hello? - [audience laughter]
CHEVY: Everybody was taking cocaine on the show.
You have a disposable income you never had, and...
the drug cocaine is not a friend of any personality,
I don't think-- you know, Gilda called it
the devil's dandruff.
I tried every powder and pill going.
We all did back then.
I didn't much like the coke, though.
MILLER: The person that they worried about the most
was Chevy.
He was... doing a lot of drugs.
♪
SHUSHTER: Handling a lot of fame really fast,
while on drugs, when you don't have
the strongest emotional foundation,
that's a lot to stay balanced--
to stay upright on your surfboard
in such choppy surf.
He was the one that people went nuts over.
Gilda once told me that she went to Florida,
and her mother said,
"Do you, like, really know him?"
Feeling famous wasn't a big deal to me.
I didn't care one way or the other, really.
MARINA: Let's start again so you say it
in a complete sentence.
You bitch.
Okay!
I was on a bus. I looked up.
And there was a picture of me
on the cover of New York magazine.
And I realized, that's it, I'm famous.
Then I just looked around at everybody like this.
[applause]
ZWEIBEL: We go to the Emmy Awards,
- and... - The nominees are...
...we were at the grownups table now.
It was Carol Burnett. There's the old guard.
And here were these bunch of hooligans, you know,
dressed in tuxedos.
And the winner is...
Chevy Chase! NBC's "Saturday Night."
[band playing]
MICHAELS: At the Emmys, we all won for writing,
and I won for best show,
and it was, wow, you know,
uh, impossible not to get carried away.
Needless to say, this is, uh...
totally expected on my part.
- [laughter] - Uh...
CHEVY: Jacqueline, she was beautiful.
I would show her picture to Lorne and say,
"Well, you know--" Lorne would say,
"You don't love her."
"What do you mean? Look at her."
PETER: He fell in love with Jacqueline.
That was a tactical error on many levels.
CHEVY: Jacqueline wouldn't move to New York City,
and I wanted to be with her.
There was those rumors that, you know,
he was given an ultimatum by Jacqueline.
STAGE MANAGER: Okay, quiet on the floor, please.
MILLER: He said, "My girlfriend wants to live in LA."
It spoke to people thinking he was disingenuous.
MARINA: You guys all went to LA for his wedding.
Yeah, and I remember being on the plane, everyone--
there was a lottery, we wrote down dates that
we thought that there would-- you know,
the divorce would happen, okay?
So it was like, "Yeah, yeah, this is gonna last."
[laughing] Oh, God.
[laughing]
CHEVY: I was just off.
I don't think I really understood
what I wanted.
[laughter and applause]
ZWEIBEL: A birdy told Gilda, and Gilda told me.
That's how I found out that Chevy was leaving the show.
It was shocking.
We-- We just started.
We were just at the Emmys where all the grownups
are first finding out what-- who we are
and what we're doing. Why now?
I never had any plans ever.
Uh, I had agents
who had plans.
So... and at the time I was hot,
so it wasn't too tough for the agents to see that.
I said, "We're just beginning here,
and I think you're at the center of it,"
but we were never gonna fight.
Neither of us would've done that.
[applause]
The forces pulling him were
money, power, and all of that,
and when Hollywood wants you, they're pretty good at it.
SHAFFER: He used to say,
"Jackie doesn't like me when I'm performing.
I turn into somebody.
My ego comes out,
and she doesn't like it.
She would rather I just be a writer."
In hindsight,
I felt it was a mistake
to...
leave "SNL."
It really was the kind of show that
I was a part of making, with Lorne.
And it's the kind of thing I wanted to do.
This is a weekly pull. Chevy gets fan mail weekly.
And it's kind of a massive amount,
- so this is sort of... - A little bit.
This is half of a weekly amount.
This looks good, it's "priority-tet."
- That means it's from Poland. - Let's see what we got.
I hope there are no animal parts in there.
"I would like to write you a big thank you
for all the excellent roles, and the endless emotions
- that I experienced." - Thank you.
"One of the films which I am emotionally attached to
is 'Foul Play,' if you could find a moment
to sign the photos, it would be priceless for me to have."
Sometimes you get mail from dogs,
actual animals.
Joy Heath. [sniffs]
"Please shoot my husband."
GANINO: We met about four or five years ago.
I was brought on to bring him to some state,
it might've been Chicago or Wisconsin,
or something like that, and we started traveling,
and then we just hang out, our families got along.
They get along really well, and we started
doing things together with my children and his children.
And we just bonded like that, and--
- Yep. - I don't know--
I don't even-- I don't know how we became so close.
But we're here and we enjoy it.
Well, it was your homosexual proclivities, but--
One time I didn't have a shirt on,
it wasn't my fault.
"I'm a great admirer and fan of yours.
I love your performances in 'National Lampoon Vacation'
and 'Community.' Thank you for being
one of my biggest role models."
"My fiancée and I...
would be ecstatic if you attended our wedding."
- Okay. - Here's one from Spud.
- Spud Toomer. - Boy.
"I sincerely appreciate you taking the time
to read my letter, I truly enjoy being part of your career
and admire everything you accomplished."
He wants you to sign... these.
Should I write "To Spud Toomer"?
- Yeah. - "Wonderful prose."
Wonderful prose.
GANINO: I was doing the fan mail,
and I opened it up, and it says,
"Chevy, just wanna wish you a happy 80th birthday.
Miss you so much," you know, "love to see you soon."
And then it said, "Bill Clinton, love you."
And I was like, "Holy cow, man,
you just got a birthday card from Bill Clinton."
CHEVY: Yeah.
You know, I really regard Bill
as one of our greatest presidents.
Really bright, intelligent guy.
Not terribly humorous.
[as Bill Clinton] "Hello, Chevy, how're you?
Thanks for calling.
Hillary's on my head right now.
She's sitting on my head.
She's stark naked. I'll call you later."
This is the way I am at my age.
Just a child.
- GANINO: Yep. - An angry child.
[chuckling]
Hello.
You, what are you doing here?
Two years after a premiere of a show
where no one knows him.
Now co-starring Goldie Hawn.
GOLDIE HAWN: I didn't really know him.
I knew he was funny.
And then I went up to the office to meet him,
and I opened the door, and there comes this 6'4" guy.
He's handsome. He's got presence.
I mean, aside from being funny,
but I mean, he really was kind of adorable.
And I was wearing sort of a purse,
it was crocheted, but it was shapeless,
but it did look like an udder of a cow.
He literally took his hand and lifted it on my purse,
and he said, "Cough."
That's a funny group for Turk to belong to.
Hey-- I play detective, you play lady in distress.
Hey, wait a minute, it's my ass they're after.
I'm sorry, you're right,
it is your ass they're after, and it's my job
to see to it that I get there first.
[chuckling] ...I could honestly go on
about how amazing a chemistry we had.
We really were aligned in our timing,
and we could feel each other.
[applause]
MILLER: Chevy has a great starting vehicle.
It's not that things are easy for him,
but that who Chevy is,
in his gumption and confidence,
it plays well out in Hollywood.
He's off and running.
HAWN: I was a single parent.
I had two children, Katie and Oliver.
We went out together.
We were both presenting something at an event,
and then we came back together,
and Oliver, he had fallen asleep
in front of the television set.
And he went over to him...
and he picked him up...
and he carried him to bed.
And he came down the stairs, and he looked at me,
he said, "Go up, he's waiting for you."
And I went upstairs, and I sat with Oliver for a while.
And then I came downstairs.
And he was playing the piano, softly.
And he looked up at me, and he said...
"I can't believe you're doing all this alone."
He cared.
And that's the other part of the wild man.
The man who fell over everything.
The guy who had faux pas.
The really funny, wacky, crazy guy.
Also has a deep heart.
[playing gentle melody]
["Hollywood Nights," Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band]
[cheering and applause]
REPORTER: Chevy Chase, one of the most
successful alumni of "Saturday Night Live,"
is back up on the big screen.
This your place, Carl?
Yeah, what do you think?
It's really-- It's really awful.
Oh, sit down, come on--
No, I don't wanna stick to anything in here.
"Caddyshack" is probably the biggest showcase
for all the things that are Chevy Chase.
He's sexy, he's debonair,
he's cool, he's funny,
it's all there.
Ty, what'd you shoot today?
Oh, I don't keep score, judge.
Oh, well, how do you measure yourself
- with other golfers? - By height.
REYNOLDS: As a kid, I studied him.
He would throw away the gold
and push the silver, right?
Like, he would say something that is like,
that's funny, and then under the breath
quickly throw away something, that's the A-plus joke.
I'm gonna end up working in a lumber yard the rest of my life.
What's wrong with lumber? I own two lumber yards.
I notice you don't spend too much time there.
- I'm not sure where they are. - MILLER: "Caddyshack" is
one of the greatest comedies ever made, bar none.
And you can't do it without him.
♪ And those Hollywood nights ♪
♪ In those Hollywood hills ♪
♪ She was looking so right ♪
♪ In her diamonds and frills ♪
♪ Oh, those big city nights ♪
He was cerebral, he was funny,
and he was handsome, too.
- ♪ Who's the ♪ - ♪ Moosiest moose we know? ♪
♪ Marty Moose! ♪
♪ Marty Moose! Marty Moose! Marty Moose! ♪
[cartoonish] Hyuck! That's me! Hahaha!
SMITH: The "National Lampoon's Vacation" came out.
My parents were like,
"Oh, my God, this happened?!
Like, this happened to us!"
MARTY MOOSE: Sorry, folks, we're closed
for two weeks to clean and repair
America's favorite family fun park.
Sorry! Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck!
[groaning]
REYNOLDS: I think dads everywhere understood
Clark Griswold.
At first I didn't wanna take this vacation.
And now I'm glad I did.
It's given me a chance to spend a lot more time
- with you and... - Audrey.
Audrey, yeah.
REPORTER: "National Lampoon's Vacation"
with Chevy Chase took in
$49.4 million at the box office.
Chevy had massive, massive movie star hits.
Ah-ah-ah-ah, new car, I'll take it.
- Waitress? - HOST: He's got it all,
ladies and gentlemen, Chevy Chase.
- [applause] - Here is Chevy Chase!
[applause]
OVITZ: He gave me a Cartier clock,
and on the back of it, it was engraved,
"Keep getting me the six million."
[laughing]
HOST: Chevy Chase!
[applause]
ATTENDING NURSE: May I help you, Doctor...
Oh, it's me, Dr. Rosenpenis, I'm just here to check out--
- Doctor who? - the family's file.
Dr. Rosen-Rosen, I'm here to--
Could you give that name again, I--
It's Dr. Rosen, I-- I wanna check out--
- Doctor who? - Dr. Rosen.
Where's the record room?
REYNOLDS: In my early days, if you watch "Van Wilder,"
I'm just doing a Chevy Chase impression.
- Where am I? - You're in the records room.
Can I get you something?
Uh, yeah, do you have The Beatles' "White Album"?
I've seen "Fletch," I don't know, 75 times.
Oh, I just got out of the shower.
Yeah-- can I borrow your towel for a sec?
My car just hit a water buffalo.
[laughing]
PETER: For me, the height
of Chevy's filmmaking was
"National Lampoon Christmas Vacation."
I just can't get enough of that movie.
There are plenty of shopping days left
until adulteries-- adulthood-- which is to say Christmas.
Chevy made movies that you wanna see over and over again.
- What is your objective? - My objective?
Well, I object to taking a girl out, you know,
and buying her dinner, and then she won't put out for you.
- I'm Lucky Day! - I'm Ned Nederlander!
And I'm Dusty Bottoms, and together we're--
- the Three Amigos!
[all cough]
♪ Hollywood nights ♪
D'ANGELO: The thing about fame is that
it doesn't really change you,
it's that everything around you changes.
♪ Thrills... ♪
If you were at Yankee Stadium with Chevy,
everyone at Yankee Stadium would know he was there.
♪
♪ Above all the lights ♪
CHEVY: Good evening, and welcome
to the 59th Annual Academy Awards show.
My name is Chevy Chase, I feel privileged
to be your host this evening.
I'm really a replacement. I'm sorry to have to tell you
that Jim and Tammy Baker couldn't make it tonight.
[audience laughter]
♪
SHAFFER: There's nothing like when Chevy Chase is
coming into a restaurant. I've never seen-- you know,
wow, the people's heads snap around.
Chevy is a bona fide movie star.
- ♪ Those Hollywood nights... ♪ - [screaming]
♪ Those Hollywood hills ♪
♪ Above all the lights ♪
♪ Hollywood nights ♪
JAYNI CHASE: I met Chevy when I was 23.
So, I was two years out of college.
It was my second job.
Working on a Chevy Chase movie.
The last thing I wanted was to...
fall in love.
Yeah.
- MARINA: Um... - Chevy's calling.
- [laughing] - MARINA: Take it!
Hi, honey!
CHEVY: Hi, don't forget to mention how much
we make love every day.
[laughing]
Okay, I'm on camera, so they might've captured that.
- [laughing] - And three times on weekends.
- Goodbye! - Okay, love you, honey.
[laughing]
CHEVY: I was working on a movie called "Under the Rainbow."
Jayni was the production coordinator in it.
My trailer was pulled right up...
near to where the production unit was.
And I could hear her voice.
And I'd think, "What a beautiful voice."
But I never looked to see who it was.
Finally, I sort of did this, you know,
where you look in the door.
And I saw her, and she was gorgeous.
We were shooting at Union Station, Downtown LA.
It was the end of the day, and he came up and said,
"Would you go with me to the premiere
of my movie tonight?
Goldie is in Paris,
and Jessica Lange...
or some other actress has the flu."
And I looked up, I said, "Not if I'm third choice."
And he looked very crestfallen.
Oh...
Wasn't my job to give him his call time,
but I offered to call him with it.
And he came on all out of breath,
and I said, "Do you still want me
to come with you tonight?" And he said, "Really?"
We went, and that was the beginning
of my falling in love with him.
♪ Thanks for droppin' by ♪
♪ I never thought to ask you why ♪
CHEVY: Through one machination or another, I managed
to get her on my side.
JAYNI: We had a very small wedding
in the backyard,
including the caterers, 40 people.
She's the great love of my life.
She's only three feet tall-- no.
[laughing]
CHEVY: We were married...
and...
it's only a year since he saw that last tape.
And look what's happened.
- JAYNI: This is Cydney. - It's Cydney.
[soft chatter]
JAYNI: The way he took care of me
when I was pregnant.
And at all the birthings of the girls,
and seeing him as a daddy,
and how happy it made him.
- CHEVY: Hi, pee-wees! - Hi, Dad!
They go through their ups and downs,
I mean, it's not perfect.
but they really hold on
to one another, and they really love each other.
CHEVY: She's beautiful and smart as a whip.
I don't have much to say about her that isn't good.
MARINA: No, I know, but it's just nice
after hearing about Jacqueline and what have you--
[burp]
Oh, I'm sorry. Your mistake?
- that you found someone and that you're--
you know, you have three beautiful daughters.
Yeah, no, I don't think a lot of people have
the happiness I have.
Marriages are breaking up,
kids do bad things-- all that stuff
that is family stuff, it's tough.
Not just in America, but even worse,
in let's say Russia, or because--
it must be nice to be a Russian family, huh?
Pass the fork.
Thank you. Come on.
Oh, thanks.
[Ganino murmuring]
[horn honking]
[Chevy murmuring]
GANINO: Hi.
CHEVY: Hello.
- What's his name? - That's Rubet.
She will be 11 in July.
- Oh, cool. - Yeah.
I have a couple of 17 year olds.
- Really? - And... a 23 year old.
We have everything.
Cats, dogs,
- we have a pelican. - Really?
- No. - [laughing]
- Do I have a picture of my dog? - Yeah.
- That's my granddaughter. - Cute.
- She's only seven months. - Seven months, wow.
- She speaks French. - Really?
- No. - [laughing]
[chuckling] I'll just keep lying to you.
- I keep buying it. - Well, I'll have a steak.
- [laughing] - No, I'm kidding.
We came in to get some flowers. They're for my wife.
I have you on file, so if you wanna know, like,
- what you got last time-- - Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Let's look. - Yeah, let me take a look.
Oh...
- beautiful. - They're actually tulips.
They're not peonies. These are tulips.
- They look like peonies. - Yeah, those are tulips.
- That's your license. - What?
- That's your license. - Yeah, I want you
- to drive my car over here. - Oh, yeah?
[chuckling]
What did I just give you my license for?
- This is what I meant. - Perfect, thank you.
[chuckling]
These are for Jayni, my wife.
[coughing]
I love her.
[loud chewing]
If she doesn't love 'em, you tell me, but I'm--
I guarantee she'll love 'em.
Do you want me to sign something?
- No, you're good. - What do you mean I'm good?
- I don't know what they cost. - They're $400.
- $400? - Yeah.
What?!
For a little thing of flowers?
That's a big thing, I can give you a little thing.
- I'll bet you can. - [laughter]
Yeah, okay, never mind.
Oh, they really are pretty.
Yeah, these are particularly special.
We don't have these in regularly,
- you can't always get those. - Peonies?
No, those are actually tulips--
I know, I know, I was kidding you.
[coughing]
By the way, that's why I drive.
- Yeah. - For people like you.
[laughing] Thank you.
GREISMAN: We spent a lot of time together
in the late '70s
and early '80s.
He was uniquely funny
and pretty crazy.
When we were in Hawaii,
he had somebody
ship in many ounces of coke
in a special shaving cream can,
which you could twist in a certain way
and get to the coke.
[chuckling]
Every so often, we'd have some cocaine
flown in from the... from the mainland.
"Mail's here!"
Anyway. [laughing]
NED: When I would visit Chevy in LA,
I remember going to one restaurant,
and it was a circular table,
and I think there were about...
maybe six to eight of us around the table.
And the only person I knew was Chevy.
But in the center of the table,
there was, like, a lazy Susan.
There was kind of a pyramid.
That pyramid was cocaine.
[as Donald Duck] Oh, boy!
Oh, boy! Oh, boy!
[heavy sniffing]
MILLER: "Modern Problems," there's such a thin line
between what's going on
in the movie and in his life.
Yes!
[laughing] I like it!
The night before we were starting to shoot
"Modern Problems," Chevy just calls up,
he's like, "I'm not doing the movie,
you have to fix the script."
Alan Greisman, Ken Shapiro, and I go up to Chevy's house.
We start to go over the script page by page,
and Chevy pours coke on the table
and starts sniffing it.
'Cause there you're supposed to be having
a rational discussion about a movie that you're gonna do,
and he's just snorting coke like there's no tomorrow.
We're sitting there, kind of...
not really wanting some, but maybe, you know,
but he's not offering us any, okay?
So we're in that space, okay,
who does cocaine alone in front of other people?
GREISMAN: So, by the time we're three-quarters
of the way through the critique,
he says, "You know what, I disagree with myself."
So rationality was not high on the agenda.
[soft music]
Chevy had a weird relationship
with the director Ken Shapiro.
CHEVY: Kenny wanted me to play a dream that I was a plane,
landing.
He put landing lights on my arms.
They flipped the switch, and he was uh-uh-uh-uh-uh.
And they thought he was joking,
so they let it go longer than they "coulda, shoulda."
All of a sudden, he, like, passes out.
So, the EMT's come, okay?
And they do these questions, how many fingers
am I holding up? Do you know what day it is?
And what's your name?"
And he goes, "Don't you know who I am?"
I mean, and my memory of that is that...
oh, come now.
I'm not saying he didn't feel something,
but he certainly didn't get electrocuted,
or a full dose of something.
Chevy, you don't want to work with him
because he can be so unpleasant
and so gratuitously mean.
And I don't think he knows that he is.
I think it's just--
it's an instinct.
[soft music]
OVITZ: Sometimes, you know, he was his own worst enemy.
He would do things...
that were emotional or fought off insecurity
that he shouldn't've done.
MARINA: Would you ever try to talk to him about it? I mean--
Yeah, I was very open with him about it,
and, um...
to his credit, he would listen.
Whether he would take the advice or not
remained to be seen.
SHUSHTER: On the surface, Chevy looks like the guy that
everything went perfect for.
It wasn't really the case, you know?
There was-- There was some darkness.
MARINA: Did anyone tell you
about the Terry Sweeney incident?
I was there for it, yeah.
["SNL" theme music]
HOST: It's Saturday Night Live!
[cheering and applause]
With host Chevy Chase!
MILLER: When Chevy came back to host,
I don't think anyone is prepared
for the Chevy that shows up.
I always felt like...
it was beneath him to do this.
I've gotten to know the cast very well,
it's a great new cast, I hope you saw last week's show;
if you didn't, this week, you're gonna meet them.
They're a wonderful group of 28 kids...
[laughter]
That's not true, there are only about seven.
MILLER: He was really tough on the furniture that week.
Particularly Terry Sweeney,
who was the first
openly gay cast member of "SNL."
- Uh, President Kennedy? - Very good job.
He had this wonderfully warm icebreaker
with Terry Sweeney, which was, "You're gay, right?"
And Terry said, "Yes, what would you like me to do for you?"
And Chevy said, "You can start by licking my balls."
And then, of course, it went downhill from there.
MICHAELS: I think Chevy was just being Chevy.
He would say things that were funny,
but he assumed that
you were comedy people and you could speak that way.
You know, we would say terrible things
because that's what would make us laugh.
It wasn't-- we didn't tell anecdotes, you know.
MARINA: You said to Terry Sweeney,
"Oh, you're the gay guy, why don't we do something
where we say you have AIDS,
and then every week we weigh you."
[laughing]
That's the worst.
Ron, how are you?
Nancy. Just terrific, Jerry.
- How's Betty? - Oh, she's fine.
[audience laughter]
CHEVY: Terry Sweeney, I mean,
he was very funny, this guy.
I don't think he's alive anymore,
Terry Sweeney. I hope he isn't,
because I don't want you talking to him about this.
- MARINA: He's alive. - Is he?
- Yeah, and I think-- - How do you know?
'Cause I looked him up on Google,
- I mean, is he alive? - ASSISTANT: He's alive.
- He's alive. - Oh-- he's alive!
The gay guy!
MARINA: Oh, God.
No, I think, I think, and this is--
But the idea of weighing him, come on,
that's-- that's clearly me--
MARINA: No, yeah, his-- I think his recollection
is different.
- Oh, what's his-- - He was very hurt--
- Oh. - by, yeah, so.
Well, when did you talk to him?
MARINA: I haven't talked to him.
Well, then, how do you know he was hurt?
MARINA: Because I've heard it from other people.
Other people have told you that I hurt his feelings?
MARINA: Yeah, it's, like, in books.
I have to be going now.
I'll leave you two leaders alone to talk.
I'm gonna take Lucky for a walk.
MARINA: I think you hurt his feelings,
- and... - What book is this?
ASSISTANT: Should I read this?
- Yeah, read it out. - All right.
Come over here, so he can hear you.
Oh, this is great, thanks.
This'll make my day.
"Chevy turned to me, and he said,
'Oh, you're the gay guy, right?'
And he said, 'I've got an idea for a sketch for you.'
'How about we say you have AIDS,
and we weigh you every week.'
It was out of place, so then he ended up having to apologize
and actually come into my office.
He was really furious that he had to apologize to me.
He was just beside himself, and it was just awful."
None of that's true. I would remember that.
- MARINA: You would? - Yeah!
That I-- That I was angry
that I had to apologize to him?
Good God, Chevy, what's wrong with you?
I mean, of course I-- that's just not true.
My memory is that he's lying, is my memory.
He's not telling the truth.
That isn't me. That's not how I am.
And if I am that way,
my life has changed, 'cause I have to live with that now,
for the rest of my fucking life
because you guys got a book out and read it to me.
I'd like to think the... [mutters quickly]
...good night.
MILLER: Within the next week,
it was all over the place.
And you know, people who left that week saying,
"I never wanna see the guy again."
Look, there are certain people who've got
reputations that you don't want.
Um...
[chuckling] ...Chevy...
The old Chevy...
could make you laugh putting you down,
and there was a little bit of a wink there,
so you were in on the joke.
But now it just comes off as mean.
MARINA: It's kind of the elephant in the room.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
The elephant in the room, yeah.
MARINA: That there are two camps.
There are the people who love you,
and the people who don't like you.
Okay, I don't know what to say about the people
who don't like me, except fuck 'em.
What can you say, actually, about something like that?
I can't say they're misunderstanding me,
because maybe they're not, by their standard.
Uh, I just prefer to be liked.
Not disliked.
Like all of us.
[soft music]
JAYNI: Our doctor, the ear, nose, and throat guy,
called me and asked me to come in,
and he needed to talk to me.
And he explained to me
that Chevy was addicted to cocaine.
MILLER: Cocaine one-upped him.
He was no longer in control,
and for a guy who loves being in control,
I think it was a very, very dark,
dangerous journey.
CEDERQUIST: He's had many times
where he was doing just fine,
and then something happens,
and that's-- you know, it's a disease of relapse,
and you know, it's never a wonder...
[chuckling] ...that an addict uses.
It's a miracle if an addict doesn't.
JAYNI: So we did an intervention.
He said, "I-- I know I need-- I need to stop.
And I know I need help."
Well, comedian Chevy Chase will be off the job for a while.
A spokesman says that the reason is a drug problem.
SMITH: The first time I ever heard of
the Betty Ford Clinic was
in relation to Chevy Chase going there,
and my mother having to be like,
"Well, that's where the rich people go
when they've had too much to drink."
JAYNI: He went to Betty Ford,
but after a week, he called me
and begged me to come pick him up.
REPORTER: Doctors released comedian Chevy Chase
from the Betty Ford Drug Rehabilitation Center
over the weekend. According to a spokeswoman,
his system is cleaned of drugs.
You know, the actual addiction
or the...
the things he's gone through,
I've come to see it as an illness.
The fact that he has overcome that,
that's another thing he's overcome.
MILLER: There's good news and bad news.
Because, if you go through rehab,
and you're successful,
then you're moving on with a healthier life.
The problem is that all the crutches,
all the vehicles that you used
to get through certain situations,
they're all gone.
And it turns out that
that inner core, that raw nature,
can be incredibly mean.
[gentle music]
ANDY: He made these huge movies,
he was one of the biggest stars going...
and then he made a couple of ones
that weren't-- didn't do that great.
GREISMAN: Because he was who he is,
even on the way to the top,
he was not a good guy.
But I can't imagine how he was
on the way to the bottom.
I mean, basically I'll just yell,
and I'll yell, "Help, hey, you guys, hey!"
- Yeah, keep it going. - Yeah.
VOICE: Speed, mark.
JOHN CARPENTER: And... light!
CHEVY: Hey, help! Up here!
- Now over to number two. - Help!
Bang away!
Chevy Chase, I wanted to quit the business
after working with him.
VOICE: Really, what was the movie--
CARPENTER: "Memoirs of an Invisible Man."
Um, it...
he was a producer on this thing.
VOICE: So you're directing, and he's, like,
- got this attitude. - Oh, yeah, it... it was bad.
VOICE: Was it one of those things where they had
- to shut things down-- - No, no, it was not that way.
I just-- I took it all in and just internalized it.
But that was my... uh, that was my...
- worst... worst. - [laughing]
It's a great movie, I'm very happy with it.
- You play an invisible man. - I play the Invisible Man.
I sincerely think that this is by far and away
the best picture I've made, which is...
- Really. - ...according to some critics
the equivalent of a mutt saying, "I just had a beautiful dump."
FILM CRITIC: "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"
is a mediocre movie that can't make up its mind
what it wants to be.
Chase is fine when the going gets funny.
Unfortunately, when he's called upon to act,
he turns amateurish."
OVITZ: I'm gonna say something that I probably shouldn't,
but I never got the sense
that Chevy was as serious about his career
as his career was serious.
We had clients that were so focused on building
and what role went next,
and... um...
he didn't think that way.
I don't think he took himself as seriously as he was taken.
MARINA: How did the talk show come about?
You know, it's funny, I knew you'd ask me
this question. I hated the idea.
Bruce Bodner was Chevy's lawyer
morphed into his manager.
Bruce was very influential on his life.
He really had Chevy's ear.
Thought it was a good idea, those of us around him didn't.
REPORTER: There's a lot to be done...
- [cat meowing] - ...as Chevy Chase starts
his quest for a chunk of the late night talk show audience.
The pressure is, can I do it?
And the anticipation is, can I do it?
MARINA: You did a talk show, what was that like?
Short. [laughing]
Thanks for asking.
I never took anybody's advice
about how to do a talk show.
I didn't-- I can do it, I kept thinking.
He came to me and said, "Do you wanna work on it?"
Um, and I was like, yeah.
JAYNI: If there's anything I could change,
it's that period of time...
that kind of took us to "Memoirs of an Invisible Man"
and the talk show.
ANDY: The closer we got to the airdate,
the more we started to feel like...
this ship is not upright.
So I have a pain in my... my chest right in here,
and some numbness going down my arm.
Otherwise, I'm kind of nervous.
ANDY: I don't think it was well thought-through.
They just had this idea, oh, he's funny,
he's a big star, we'll put him on TV,
and it'll work.
[cheering and applause]
ANNOUNCER: And now, he's still not ready for primetime,
Chevy Chase!
[house band playing]
[cheering and applause]
OVITZ: It wasn't Chevy's forte.
Chevy was not a guy who could do stand-up comedy.
President Clinton is appearing on "Nightline" tonight
to discuss his healthcare plan further.
If you're watching him-- or, excuse me,
if you're watching me instead of him,
I'm flattered, but I think maybe you should see a doctor,
because that's just a sign of how really sick you are.
- [rimshot] - ANDY: I think the show needed
a different kind of producer, the person that got--
had a long history of television producing,
but it was really old-time TV comedy.
Uh, I-- I feel like a hundred dollars.
- [audience laughter] - [rimshot]
You know... I don't want this.
I-- I want you out.
- [laughter] - CYDNEY: I remember
being on set and...
it felt like I wanted him to relax.
He felt nervous to me.
CHEVY: It was hideous.
I just didn't really have a sense of
what you do on a talk show.
It's basically a true story, and it--
it's based on sort of the dilemma
of a kid who's brought up with a father
who really cares about him, but he's also very close
to a member of kind of the mob, I mean...
- Roll the clip. - [audience laughter]
That's a hard thing to do every night for an hour.
It's almost impossible, if you wanna know the truth.
You have to know something about everything.
You have to be well-read.
You have to understand current events.
You have to know who your guest is,
and there are five of them a night.
CHEVY: I don't know how people like Letterman
and others do it. I-- it's beyond me.
You can say, well, it's interesting
to have different people with different--
yeah, yeah, right. We're all the same, pretty much,
it's not that interesting.
ANDY: The reviews were universally terrible,
and Chevy literally would come into the writers' room
and say, "You guys are doing a great job,
it is not your fault, it's my fault."
♪
ANDY: There was a 50th birthday party for Chevy
with a lot of big stars.
It was a huge disappointment
when we learned at the end of the party
that the show had been pulled by Fox.
It was my job to tell him the show was canceled,
and I did it.
CHEVY: I remember Mike Ovitz saying...
"Do you wanna do another couple of weeks, or... what?"
I said, "A couple of weeks?"
"Yeah, I think we're finished," you know, and that was it.
[soft music]
CYDNEY: It was kind of a weird environment...
after his talk show, and I know my dad
has been depressed.
I knew that at a young age.
And that was sort of hard for me
because, you know,
I would go in and, like,
tug on his shirt, and he'd say, like, "Not now, honey."
- Huh? - JAYNI: Where are we?
- What's the date? - April 19th, 1994.
Four Seasons Hotel, Washington D.C.
I'm your host, and I'd be happy to take your order.
CALEY CHASE: One thing that was interesting
about our household is that my parents were
pretty open with some of the things
going on that were deeper,
depending on our ages.
My parents were communicating enough
to say there's something called depression,
and it is hard
for people to get out of bed.
- JAYNI: Hi! - Why are you doing this?
[chuckling]
JAYNI: He would get in bed and not get out.
I didn't understand why.
CHEVY: My father and mother,
they divorced when I was around four,
and not many years later, he married again.
And so did my mother.
NED: John Cederquist, he married my mother.
He was a psychoanalyst.
He was not like my father.
Humorless.
NED: He was the father figure,
as our stepfather,
for most of the time growing up.
CEDERQUIST: My father had a flash anger,
and he could lash out with a single blow,
and no talk before or after.
He did not take to...
anything that he perceived as insolence.
Chevy was insolent.
The first time we...
stayed together,
the first time I went to wake him up,
he shuddered.
And he explained, "Well, my mother would
wake me up slapping me."
From the time he was a little guy, wham.
CEDERQUIST: Our mother was a bag of cats.
Certainly on the schizoid spectrum.
I felt like
this was an out-of-control woman,
who I look back on, and I say,
"I feel sorry for her."
She had her own issues.
Bad ones, but...
she was physically abusive to me.
EMILY: Oftentimes, in abusive households,
there's one child who's the target of the abuse.
And unfortunately he-- he was that.
I would hear stories from Chevy
about some of the terrible things
that would happen to him as a young man.
Things like being locked in the closet.
There was a cellar, and he was sent down there
because of really messing up at school.
CHEVY: My marks stank,
but they stank because,
whereas others would concentrate on their homework,
I didn't have a chance at that.
I was always worried about one thing or another
that had to do with my own health.
Ned and I were eating breakfast,
and Cederquist came down
and started slapping me across the back of the head.
And I stood up and made it clear,
I didn't think this was a time for corporal punishment.
And John Cederquist sat down, and I sat down.
CHEVY: I knew at that time that
Ned was there for me.
That was a big moment for us.
MARINA: So, at what point,
or was there a point where you walked away
from your mother and stepfather and never saw them again?
[loud munching]
Sorry?
It shaped him. He used comedy, he used humor,
as-- as a way to, um,
you know, mask what was going on inside.
And that's continued. It continues to this day.
I mean, he will joke around from morning to night,
and you won't know what's going on.
That's his instinct, is...
I wanna bring humor to this situation,
because that's how he always dealt with
the problems in his life.
Chevy, do you have your lighter close by?
CHEVY: I have my lighter very close by.
- Are you ready? - I'm ready,
because I wanna put all these away.
Oh, wait, that's chewing gum.
MARINA: Do you know about his past?
Do you know that he was abused as a child?
Um, I don't know that he was abused as a child,
but I-- I am sort of sad to say
that I would-- I would have guessed that,
because, uh...
you know, um, that--
what he's doing is a-- is a coping mechanism.
No problem.
[audience laughter]
Funny people generally have
a lot of sad things in their background.
A lot of tragedy, that's where the comedy comes from.
[audience laughter]
GALECKI: What it really boils down to
is being able to behave in a very natural way
in a very unnatural environment.
And I think, often,
the-- that-- that skill is honed,
um...
in a-- in an unhappy home.
[audience laughter]
Uh-oh, I've got it--
Oh!
We lost a huge evergreen over here.
- Huge tree. - What do you think of this?
CHEVY: I went through, like, six or seven years
of real depression, I just couldn't quite figure out
what it was... when you're in it,
uh... you're just not feeling too good.
[electric piano playing]
♪
CALEY: I found that
the better I got on the piano,
the more he would come downstairs,
so I played my tuchus off.
He loved it. And he was inspired by it
and inspired me and loved hearing it
and would love to show me stuff.
It brought him out of the bedroom.
[Jayni laughing]
This is our house now.
JAYNI: Well, it's most of it.
Moving us out of LA
was my way of making sure that
we were living more in reality.
That was the best thing, I think, for all of us.
To get out of that environment.
I needed to get him here.
This was-- he grew up here.
[kids' chatter]
CHEVY: I've always had Jayni.
It's pretty hard to be depressed too long
with a happy woman.
[Jayni laughing]
Chevy!
[laughing]
[gentle music]
[music fades]
CHEVY: Where's the chess set?
GANINO: Right back there, buddy.
You wanna play now? Or just this?
Just that first, we'll do the chess after.
Here.
That's the face right there.
[laughing] Why'd you make that face?
How's this?
- Look at that face! - No.
All right, ready? [laughing]
All right, try again.
Why are you making that same face?
What?
It looks like you're taking a shit.
It looks like I'm taking a shit?
- Yeah, look at it. - Sorry, everybody.
[chuckling] My apologies.
Okay, from now on let's be serious.
- Seriously. - [laughing]
He likes to tease.
Remember the 12 year old boy that pulls the girl's hair.
- Right? - That's him.
"All the best."
[laughing]
We were at a restaurant, and he seemed to be
talking to his veal chop,
he had one finger, like, he says, "Come on,"
he would say, "Come on, come on,"
[smooching] "come on, come on,"
and then with his other hand, he picked it up,
he goes "fwah,"
"there, that's a good," you know?
If I were you, I wouldn't do that.
[laughing]
AYKROYD: Chevy will do-- if you're sitting at a table,
he'll be sitting there, and then he'll start to do
this... he does this,
where...
he bounces along, and you see
this figure bounce, and it's just--
always buckles me over when he-- when he does that.
WOMAN: Huge fan, Mr. Chase, huge fan.
- Huge fan. - Thank you, I appreciate that.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
Would you like a signed picture?
- Do you have one available? - I might.
- I might have one. - [woman laughing]
SHORT: We were at the AFI Tribute to Gregory Peck.
Way, way in the corner, Mary Hart was
interviewing someone live, and Chevy said,
"I wonder if I can hit her with this roll."
And he whipped it as far as he could,
and it hit her right in the head in the middle of a thing,
and he had to sit down like a kid.
I was at a...
an event, and this young caterer
came up with a tray full of chocolate mousse,
like shots of chocolate mousse,
and she went, "Would you guys like some chocolate mousse?"
And Chevy looked at it, and he stuck his finger in one,
took it out, and... "No, thank you."
So, I'm up 100...
- to... - [laughing]
- ...twelve? - Yes.
We're not rolling, are we rolling?
- MARINA: Yes, we are. - This whole time?
- What was the question? - So, "Community."
What? [laughing]
Okay, I did "Community,"
Jayni says I was great in it.
What is community college?
Well, you've heard all kinds of things.
You've heard it's loser college,
where old people...
I sort of thought I was in retirement
a little bit back with my wife,
back-- and kids back at the farm in New York,
but, you know,
when I saw the... the pilot script,
I said, "Oh, I gotta-- I gotta play that guy."
My dad got this pilot.
He said yes to it
because he loved the writing.
Thought Dan Harmon was quite a genius.
I was here in LA,
acting, pretty much just living on couches.
My mom said...
"I don't really wanna move to LA,
is there any way you would live with your father?
I'll give you a place to stay."
And I was like, "Oh, my God, yes, I'll do it."
I became a little LA.
I got some sage.
Wanted to empty the house of...
whatever the heck was there.
The next morning, I found a note
in the bag with the sage.
It just said, "Smoked it, didn't like it.
Love you, Dad."
And I'm thinking, did he?
[upbeat music]
I was a Chevy Chase fan from "Saturday Night Live."
The beginning. He's a classical
sketch performer.
I was hired to do "Community,"
and I had heard, you know,
that he could be challenging.
Would you stop tuning that guitar?
You are 105 years old!
Excuse me!
But it's springtime, and I thought
I might woo a few chicks.
CHANDRASEKHAR: On the first day I was working with Chevy,
he's throwing a big pause in the middle of this sentence
that cannot have a pause.
And I'm like...
"Can we do it again without that pause?"
And he's putting the pause in and putting the pause in,
and he keeps putting the pause in.
And I'm like, "If you pull that pause out,
I think it's gonna be funnier, right?"
And he goes, "Oh, I see, are you telling me
how to do comedy?" And I said,
"I am, in this case, I am, and it kills me,
but yes, I am." And he goes, "Fine, fuck it."
And so he did it without the pause,
and he goes, "You're right, that was better."
He and I would argue about how he was delivering a line,
and it would get heated, and the next day,
he'd come in and be rubbing my belly
and telling me Richard Pryor stories.
I loved it, like, I mean, you know...
I-- I complimented him on the movie "Foul Play."
And he goes, "It's a terrible film."
And I'm like, "No, Chevy, it's a great film."
And he goes, "You don't know what the fuck
you're talking about." I'm like, "I do know
what the fuck I'm talking about."
And he goes, "You wanna see a good movie?
'Rosemary's Baby,' that's a good movie."
And I'm like, "Okay, that's also a good movie."
- McHALE: It seems... - Blegh!
- It seems... - [clearing throat wetly]
Thought it was my line, I'm sorry.
CHANDRASEKHAR: There was a little bit of negativity
around Chevy and the rest of the cast.
And so there was a desire
to shoot him out every day.
And so the very first shots of the day,
I would get him to say all his lines,
and we would argue,
and then, uh, and I'm like,
"All right, Chevy, we're done." And he would leave.
Once he left, and everyone's like, "Hey!"
Troy, get up here and double-bounce me!
That's not how we do things here!
You get up here and double-bounce me
or I'll tell everybody about this place!
Harmon then was, like,
listening to his-- his cast,
and he goes, "Don't worry, I broke Pierce's legs for you."
Father...
[thud, clang]
CHEVY: My legs, aah!
CHANDRASEKHAR: Two casts and a wheelchair.
So you just stick him in one place,
and just shoot him out for the whole episode.
He's just fuckin' in that chair.
JAYNI: For the first time,
it was very clear to him that he was the old fart.
His castmates, they were so much younger,
and they were just living a very different life.
Here's the thing, the first script back--
- which Chevy loves, right? - Chevy?
- [laughing] - Have you seen it?
I have not seen it. This is the respect I didn't get.
- [laughing] - It's in his email.
It was in New York. His email's in New York.
JAYNI: They were cracking up, because they'd asked him,
"Do you do email? Do you have email?"
And he said, "Oh, yeah, but that's in New York."
The cast, by the way, is-- minus Chevy,
- is so nice. - [audience laughter]
[laughter continues]
He said you're nice! You're nice!
[overlapping chatter]
ERIK KRITZER: Chevy was unprotected.
And any time I... spoke to anyone,
no one really did anything.
JAYNI: That was when I realized that
I was getting a six pack of organic red wine,
and after about four days, it was gone.
I pointed it out to Chevy
probably five different times,
and he would roll it back.
And then he didn't like me
pointing it out to him.
Because the...
the beast of addiction
starts taking over.
He was not an alcoholic all those years,
but alcoholism is a whole different level.
It really takes over.
And that was hard for him to stop.
Chevy was functional.
I didn't... realize it right away.
Caley did.
She finally said, "Mom, I think
he's drinking on set."
Look at awesome Jeffrey Winger.
Too awesome for old Pierce,
with your hip shirts and your--
your gelled hair and your...
CHANDRASEKHAR: It was out in the open
that Chevy Chase was a little difficult
on "Community." And I'm being nice.
[laughing]
People were talking about it, enough that Dan did
that thing at the wrap party.
CALEY: My dad was super-excited
to bring me and my mom to the wrap party.
We walk in, Dan had had some drinks.
He starts railing on Chevy on the microphone.
He... had gotten the whole cast and crew
to yell,
"Fuck you, Chevy, fuck you, Chevy."
I'm there, he's showing his daughter, like,
"This is the show I did,"
and we walk into "Fuck you, Chevy."
That's rough, and mean.
I don't get talked to like that by anybody,
certainly not in front of my wife and daughter,
you [bleep]-damn [bleep]-hole,
alcoholic fat [bleep].
You're not funny. You're okay.
CALEY: He was pissed
and left an angry, pissed,
but also kind of funny voicemail to Dan.
CHEVY: You can suck my [bleep].
CALEY: Dan was going through a time as well,
and he ended up putting my dad's voicemail public.
So, they went back and forth, I don't know,
there was like this little mini-war with them.
Dan was fired from the show.
They made up, and then my dad said,
"I won't come back without Dan," it was crazy!
We have to teach Jeffrey how to fight.
I know a few moves. Troy, I assume
you're handy with a switchblade.
Abed, you get back to the family tent,
try to find a chicken for Jeff to chase.
As the seasons went on,
Chevy had a lot-- a lot of concerns
with his role
and how they were portraying him.
A little angry, a little mean.
EMILY: They were writing his character
more and more bigoted.
And he... was getting upset about it.
I was there directing
the night Chevy Chase got fired from "Community."
And that's why Pierce should host the reception.
He speaks their language.
Finally, somebody's making some sense.
I've got a Blackface Señor Wences bit
- I've been workshopping. - Perfect.
CHANDRASEKHAR: Harmon writes this.
A Blackface hand puppet routine.
What you talking about, honky?
CHANDRASEKHAR: Character is a little
tone-deaf on this thing.
...I haven't introduced you to my Asian wife yet.
Uh-oh!
Now, had it been Chevy in his heyday,
he would've been totally fine, right?
He said something to Yvette.
I know that there was a history
between those two around race.
And... she...
got up and stormed out of there.
Chevy storms off.
So, the producer is like,
"We need Yvette in this scene, right?"
I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, she's in the next scene."
And he goes, "Well, she won't come out
unless Chevy apologizes to her," I'm like...
uh-oh. [laughing]
It...
he's... like...
he comes back-- comes back on the set,
and he's like-- he goes, "Hey, man,
I didn't-- I didn't say anything."
And I'm like, "No, I know, I know."
I-- he goes-- he goes, "You know, me and Richard Pryor,
I used to call Richard Pryor the n-word,
he used to call me the honky, and we loved each other."
And I'm like, "I know, man, I love that bit.
I said, "But, you know, can we just have
a little apology?" He goes, "For what?"
And I'm like... I was just,
"I don't know, like, we're just-- you know,
can we just make the goddamn show?
Can we make the goddamn show?"
Somebody has leaked that there was
a racial incident to The Hollywood Reporter
at 2:00 in the fucking morning.
There are 50-- 75 extras there,
so you're like, "Oh, my God, this is so--
this shouldn't have happened," right?
And he comes storming onto the set,
and he goes, "Who fucked me over?!"
And I'm like--
and he goes, "One of you motherfuckers
said to The Hollywood Reporter, my career is ruined!
I'm ruined!" Like that, like it's a full meltdown.
"Fuck all of you!"
And I'm like... "All right, let's shoot the scene."
Look, either he leaves the group, or I do.
[laughing]
You just dug your own grave.
CHANDRASEKHAR: He never ended up coming back after that.
Hey... what's up?
They kicked me out of the group!
ANA KASPARIAN: Chevy Chase reportedly used
the n-word after complaining about some of the lines
that the show "Community" had given him.
Some of the lines made him so upset that he said
that pretty soon they would have him
call the Black characters the n-word,
but he actually said the n-word.
REPORTER: When you read that stuff,
"Chevy's been a jerk," are those unfounded cheap shots?
CHEVY: I don't give a crap.
I am who I am.
And I like who I am.
I don't care.
And it's part of me, that I don't care.
CALEY: I would say 90% of my experience
with journalism around my dad
is negative.
- MARINA: This is like-- - Yeah.
- the core of it. - Yeah.
- So, it's kind of like-- - Of course.
You want the truth, the reality.
MARINA: Well, I want the truth, but it's kind of like,
what adds to the complication
he doesn't remember certain things.
Oh, well, I mean, he's... 80-something,
and has basically come back from the dead, so.
- Tell me about that, like-- - Oh, my God.
He had heart failure.
Have they talked about that at all?
[scoffing]
That's so hard to talk about, um...
JAYNI: Something was wrong,
and he couldn't explain to me what was wrong,
so go to the ER,
his heart stops.
During those years he was drinking,
he got cardiomyopathy,
when the heart muscles get weaker,
and they can't pump as much blood out
with each beat.
GREISMAN: They decided to put him into a coma
for maybe eight days.
That's pretty rough on the body.
It was so scary when he was in the hospital.
We were all there, it was during COVID.
The doctor had warned us we might not get him back,
we don't know how present he'll be.
You know, this...
prepare yourselves for the worst.
[beeping]
[gentle music]
He woke up, all he could do was use his voice,
"Aah, aah," and it was just his waking up,
it was like a new birth.
And the nurse came in, to, like, switch some stuff up,
And she said, "I'm gonna have to put this in here."
And he said, "That's what she said."
PETER: When he came out of it, it took a while
for him to re-orient himself.
So, I feel like his memory gaps
come from that incident.
CHEVY: So, how's that problem you're having with an erection?
[laughter]
- This is the worst. - Queen of diamonds.
Check.
Okay, I tell you what...
who's richer?
[laughing]
[both laughing]
- Let me just say this. - Yeah?
They have ways now of keeping you hard.
- [laughing] - According to the doctors,
my memory would be shot from it,
and that's what's happened here, so.
GANINO: You had a lot of cognitive disability,
and we started playing cards.
- That's right. - And we played a lot of cards,
and a lot more cards, and then you started getting
- your head back together. - Yeah.
And then my boys would come play cards with us--
- Then we went to chess. - Then we went to chess.
And that's when I started really winning.
That's when he won every once in a while.
Heart failure is what it is.
I'm fine now.
It's just that it affects your memory
very... uh...
and the doctors have told me that, so...
you know, I have to be reminded of things.
Five, king, seven.
ZWEIBEL: In the early days of SNL,
I would remember trying to tell,
like, my parents' friends, or some-- you know,
about this show that I write for.
They hadn't heard of it,
but I would then find myself saying,
"You know, the Chevy Chase show.
The show that Chevy Chase is on."
That they knew.
♪
REPORTER: Tonight, we are live
at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the very place
where "Saturday Night Live" started 50 years ago.
Comedy icons, your favorite entertainers,
are all here.
Did you think we would be here 50 years later?
Uh, you mean, like, "dead or here"?
[laughter]
MICHAELS: He was there at the moment
"Saturday Night Live" was born.
It was a really powerful collaboration.
And we both went for that ride.
If it hadn't been for me, this show would've gone
on the dumper that year.
No-- and that's all you're gonna show now, right? You devils.
CYDNEY: He's very proud of his days at "SNL."
Just speaks so highly of the people he was working with.
Loves Lorne dearly. He really does.
Would you ever come back?
Of course! Yeah, I'd love coming back.
JAYNI: They told Chevy up until that day
that there were two bits, they were going back and forth.
And then all of a sudden, "No, there's no bit."
There were a couple of versions of Update,
and we went back and forth on that.
There was also a caution
from somebody that I don't wanna name
that Chevy, you know, wasn't as focused.
ZWEIBEL: The night of the 8H show
that everybody watched on Sunday night,
he wasn't in that show.
I don't know what the dynamics were,
I don't know why that was decided--
I honestly don't know.
There's 50 years of casts.
Billy Crystal,
no bigger star than Billy.
He... didn't say a word that night.
You know, it's just too many people to fill.
Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!
He should have opened the show.
With "It's Saturday Night." That's it.
They didn't even need to use him more.
But...
come on, guys! That was it!
[applause]
And live from New York...
It's Saturday Night!
♪
ZWEIBEL: You gotta think about the people who grew up
watching that show...
and watching him.
It was a bit of a slap in the face.
Well, it was kind of...
upsetting, actually.
Uh, and this'll probably be
the first time I'm saying it,
but I expected that I would've been
on the stage too, with all the other actors.
- Wait a minute... - CHEVY: When Garrett
and Laraine went on the stage there...
I was curious as to why I didn't.
No one asked me to.
Why was I left aside?
Cornelius Crane Chase.
Who we've all come to know...
- as Connie. - [laughter]
Let's face it, Weekend Update
simply would not exist without him.
So... it would be wrong
to have him listed at anywhere but number four.
[laughter and applause]
CHEVY: Why was Bill Murray there?
- Why was I not? - Jane Curtin and...
I don't have an answer for that.
...and Danny Aykroyd.
I did bring it up once...
[coughs] ...in a text to Lorne.
And then took it back, I-I said,
"Okay, I take it back, it's silly."
But it's not that silly.
It was-- somebody made a bad mistake there.
I don't know who it was, but somebody made a mistake.
They should've had me on that stage.
It hurt.
If you wanna know what it takes
to make a show like this last for 50 years,
it's these people right around me--
the first cast. Laraine Newman,
Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Chevy Chase.
ZWEIBEL: Afterwards, when I saw him,
everybody was happy to see each other,
and there's Chevy, looking like he was...
looking for his place.
And I said, "You know, Chevy...
none of this would be happening without you."
You don't do Weekend Update
to start this at the beginning,
all of us are somewhere else tonight.
[gentle music playing]
[soft chatter]
CHEVY: There is a nip in the air, though.
Can I take something out for you?
[laughter]
- CHEVY: All right, Pat. - Hey, buddy.
- I'm glad you're here. - I'm glad I'm here, too.
Should this be buttoned, do you know, up here?
- Stand up. - Huh?
- Let me see. - Where's Jayni?
I don't know, let go of it, though.
Wha-- you said that you think this is good.
- I don't really think so-- - Well, try buttoning it.
Okay-- I am-- what do you mean, "try,"
I'm buttoning it.
GANINO: So, every December is our Super Bowl,
and this is what we prepare for all year.
So, it's okay then, do you think,
if I go out like this?
We've been going out on the road
November, late November, and all of December,
doing these...
big theater screenings of "Christmas Vacation,"
where Chevy and I go out
and do the answer Q&A afterwards.
And that all started happening
because there are so many people
that live and breathe "Christmas Vacation."
You have food on your pants, honey.
- A lot of food. - They're gonna see that--
There's breakfast.
- Please! - Lunch, dinner.
What're you-- no one's gonna notice the--
the mustard and eggs on my pants.
- What's that? - I'm drying it.
I think I'm going to enjoy this.
[laughter]
- MAN: You know Bill? - Mr. Chase, nice to meet you.
- Hi, Bill. - Thanks for being here.
- Thank you very much! - He owns the theater.
- What? - He owns the theater.
- That's great. - Look, I gotta ask you
- one question, please. - Okay.
- You made "Caddyshack"-- - Can't answer that.
- Okay. - [laughing]
[gentle music playing]
CHEVY: I did it.
[cheering and applause]
EMCEE: Please help me welcome Mr. Chevy Chase.
[cheering and applause]
What?!
- [cheering and applause] - Look at them!
Thank you.
Oh, my God. Thank you.
You know, when you're making movies,
you don't get to see this.
You just get to see the camera, the director,
and some nice ass-- no, I'm kidding.
- [laughter] - And, uh...
you're my real fans, and I really appreciate this.
- [cheering and applause] - Thank you.
Thank you so much.
[cheering and applause]
It's fun, it's fun because
when you make movies, or even television,
you don't get the kind of honest reaction from your fans,
as you do there in the theater.
I'm always moved, I get goosebumps.
EMCEE: Jayni, this question is for you.
How is Chevy similar to Clark?
Oh.
- Well, we both look the same. - [laughter]
A lot of the persona was at being effortless-- it wasn't.
MICHAELS: You represent a generation,
and another generation grows up,
they look at your stuff, they worship you,
and then you show up in their work.
You can't not remember someone like him fondly.
Listen, 5:39...
AYKROYD: Any encounter with him, you don't know what's gonna
come out next. It's exciting,
and dangerous, and really, really fun.
Kate L. wanted to know, did you break your finger
- while shooting the movie? - If what?
Did you break your finger while shooting the movie?
I thought you said "sphincter."
- [laughter] - Look...
HAWN: His legacy really is
how he made people laugh.
How you tickle that part of your heart,
and I don't think people forget that.
EMCEE: If acting didn't work out,
what would you have wanted to do for a career?
Well, I've always enjoyed surgery.
- Surgery. - [laughter]
MARINA: Would you work with him again?
Yeah... yeah. I would.
[laughing]
I'd work with Chevy, I mean, are you kidding me?
It's Chevy Chase. Yeah, I'd work with him again.
And I want to look him straight in the eye,
and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying,
no-good, rotten, four-flushing,
low-life, snake-licking...
...dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed,
ignorant, blood-sucking,
dog-kissing,
brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless,
fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged,
spotty-lipped, worm-headed
sack of monkey shit he is!
[cheering and applause]
I feel fulfilled.
By my standard, I'm still a movie star.
[gentle music]
Oh, my goodness, again, my apologies,
- I... - MARINA: For what?
Just for being who I am.
[cheering and applause]
[loud cheering]
[cheering and applause continues]
["You Can Call Me Al," Paul Simon]
♪ A man walks down the street, he says ♪
♪ "Why am I soft in the middle now? ♪
♪ Why am I soft in the middle? ♪
♪ The rest of my life is so hard ♪
♪ I need a photo-opportunity ♪
♪ I want a shot at redemption ♪
♪ Don't wanna end up a cartoon ♪
♪ In a cartoon graveyard" ♪
♪ Bone digger, bone digger ♪
♪ Dogs in the moonlight ♪
♪ Far away in my well-lit door ♪
♪ Mr. Beer Belly, Beer Belly ♪
♪ Get these mutts away from me, you know ♪
♪ I don't find this stuff amusing anymore ♪
♪ Uh, if you would be my bodyguard ♪
♪ I can be your long-lost pal ♪
♪ I can call you Betty ♪
♪ And Betty, when you call me ♪
♪ You can call me Al... ♪