Chevy Chase’s colleagues, family and friends members gathered to look again on the actor’s profession in a brand new CNN documentary – they usually didn’t maintain something again.
“He didn’t actually have a whole lot of boundaries. He was very, very free,” Goldie Hawn, who costarred with Chase in 1978’s Foul Play, stated in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, which aired on the community in January 2026.
“We all the time had this chemistry that was simply all the time there,” Beverly D’Angelo, Chase’s costar from the Nationwide Lampoon franchise, shared.
Johnny Galecki, who costarred with Chase in Nationwide Lampoon’s Christmas Trip, added, “I spent most days in between scenes in his trailer with him and his make-up artist lead, listening to the filthiest jokes I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Kevin Smith wasn’t afraid to handle the blended headlines about Chase’s previous conduct.
“You recognize, I used to be all the time sort of hoping with my coronary heart, like, they don’t get this man, and once I met him, I understood completely that something that I had ever learn was in all probability true,” Smith declared.
Different commentators flat out known as Chase an “asshole.”
“He may need been nasty to the opposite folks, however he and I had been like that,” Saturday Evening Reside alum Garrett Morris weighed in.
Scroll beneath for the most important revelations from the documentary.
Inside Chevy Chase’s School Expertise
Chevy Chase, born Cornelius Crane Chase, attended Bard School within the ‘60s. He honed in on his musical expertise at school, drumming for a jazz band that includes future Steely Dan members.
“I first met Chevy within the eating commons at Bard. I seen there was this buffoon on the desk that might do very peculiar issues,” Chase’s longtime good friend Peter Aaron stated within the doc, including that the comic would attain throughout the desk for salt and purposefully knock over somebody’s cup of water.
“Chevy typically fell down flights of stairs and it wasn’t accidentally,” Aaron continued. In faculty, Chase met Blythe Danner they usually briefly dated.
“Blythe Danner, that was my first actual love,” he confessed. “She’s an amazing girl, and I’ll all the time suppose extremely of her.”
Chevy’s brother, Ned Chase, additionally appeared within the movie, providing commentary on his brother’s relationship with Danner.
“Blythe and Chevy had totally different paths post-college,” Ned stated. “Blythe is a really expert actress, and Blythe’s profession took off nearly instantly. In the meantime, Chevy didn’t take off instantly.”
John Cederquist, Chevy’s half-brother, shared some perception on one among Chevy’s first massive purchases when he was youthful.
“Our great-grandfather handed away and left an inheritance of eight grand, and Chevy took the entire quantity and went and acquired a used Rolls Royce,” he stated. “Performed a giant wig in that.”
Chevy Chase’s ‘SNL’ Costars Opened Up About Cocaine Use
Chevy Chase was chosen as a author and forged member of the inaugural season of Saturday Evening Reside in 1975.
“I needed him to be a author, however he actually needed to be within the forged, and I solely had room for six folks,” creator Lorne Michaels stated.
It was identified within the doc that it was widespread for early SNL forged members to make use of cocaine, particularly on Tuesdays when the group labored late to organize for that week’s present.
Former SNL author Alan Zweibel stated castmates used cocaine “to assist keep up as we made cash.”
“I attempted each powder and tablet. All of us did again then,” SNL alum Dan Aykroyd admitted.
Journalist James Andrew Miller defined, “The individual they apprehensive about essentially the most was Chevy. He was doing a whole lot of medication.”
“You may have a disposable revenue you’ve by no means had, and the drug cocaine isn’t a good friend of any individual,” SNL alum Rosie Shuster stated. “Gilda [Radner] known as it the satan’s dandruff.”
“Dealing with a whole lot of fame actually quick whereas on medication whenever you don’t have the strongest emotional basis, that’s loads to remain balanced, to remain upright in your surfboard on such uneven surf,” she added.
Chevy’s movie star standing continued to rise, and he famous that, “Feeling well-known wasn’t a giant deal to me. I didn’t care come what may actually.”
Director Marina Zenovich might be heard off digital camera telling Chevy, “Let’s begin once more so that you say it in a whole sentence.”
“You bitch,” Chevy quipped. “OK, I used to be on a bus, I seemed up and there was an image of me on the quilt of New York Journal and I spotted, ‘That’s it. I’m well-known.’”
Chevy Chase’s Marriage to Jacqueline Carlin Crumbled
Chevy Chase opened up about his relationship with second spouse Jacqueline Carlin and the way it led to his choice to depart SNL.
“Jacqueline, she was lovely,” he mirrored. “I’d present her image to Lorne [Michaels]. Lorne would say, ‘You don’t love her.’”
Chevy defined that Carlin wouldn’t transfer to NYC the place he was taking pictures the present. “I used to be simply off. I don’t suppose I understood what I actually needed,” he famous.
In the end, Chevy selected to depart the present in 1976 in the course of season 2. He married Carlin that very same 12 months.
“It was stunning. We simply began, we had been simply on the Emmys the place all of the grownups had been discovering out who had been are and what we’re doing. Why now?” Michaels stated of Chevy’s exit. “I stated we’re simply starting right here and also you’re on the heart of it, the forces pulling him was cash powered and all that, and when Hollywood desires you, they’re fairly good at it.”
“I by no means had any plans ever,” Chevy mirrored on life after SNL. “I had brokers who had plans, so on the time I used to be sizzling so it wasn’t too robust for the brokers to see that.”
Chevy stated he “felt it was a mistake to depart SNL” in hindsight.
“It actually was the sort of present that I used to be part of making with Lorne, and it’s the sort of factor that I needed to do,” he added.
Goldie Hawn Mirrored on Chevy Chase’s Nurturing Aspect
Goldie Hawn shared an anecdote about Chevy Chase after costarring in Foul Play.
“I used to be a single mother or father. I had two kids, [Kate] and Oliver. We went out collectively. We had been each presenting one thing at an occasion, after which we got here again collectively, and Oliver, he had fallen asleep in entrance of the tv set, and he went over to him, and he picked him up and he carried him to mattress, and he got here down the steps, and he checked out me and stated, ‘Go up, he’s ready for you,’ and I went upstairs, and I sat with Oliver for some time, after which I got here downstairs, and he was taking part in the piano softly, and he seemed up at me and stated, ‘I can’t imagine you’re doing all this alone,’” Hawn recalled. “He cared, and that’s the opposite a part of the wild man … The man who had fake pas. The actually humorous, wacky, loopy man additionally has a deep coronary heart.”
How Chevy Chase Fell in Love With Spouse Jayni
After divorcing Jacqueline Carlin, Chevy Chase discovered love once more with spouse Jayni Chase.
“I met Chevy once I was 23, so I used to be two years out of faculty. It was my second job engaged on a Chevy Chase film. The very last thing I needed was to fall in love,” Jayni stated.
Chevy known as Jayni in the course of the documentary interview, playfully telling her, “Don’t neglect to say how a lot we make love daily,” to which she responded, “Okay, I’m on digital camera, so they could have captured that.”
Elsewhere, Chevy recalled, “I used to be engaged on a film known as Underneath the Rainbow. Jayni was the manufacturing coordinator in it. My trailer was pulled proper up close to to the place the manufacturing unit was, and I might hear her voice, and I’d suppose, ‘What a phenomenal voice,’ however I by no means seemed to see who it was.”
In the future he determined to peek via the door. “I noticed her, and she or he was attractive,” he stated, earlier than revealing he requested her to go to a film premiere with him.
In 1982, the pair walked down the aisle in a small yard marriage ceremony of 40 folks, together with the caterers.
“She’s the good love of my life,” Chevy shared. The couple later welcomed daughters Caley, Emily and Cydney.
“The way in which he took care of me once I was pregnant after which in any respect the birthings of the ladies and seeing him as a daddy and the way completely happy it made him,” Jayni gushed.
Cydney, who additionally participated within the documentary, stated, “They acquired via their ups and downs. I imply, it’s not excellent, however they actually maintain on to 1 one other they usually actually love one another.”
“She’s lovely and sensible as a whip, and I’ve nothing a lot to say about her that isn’t good,” Chevy added of Jayni. “I don’t suppose lots of people have the happiness I’ve. Marriages are breaking apart. Youngsters do unhealthy issues. All that stuff is household stuff that’s robust.”
Chevy Chase Was Handled for Cocaine Dependancy
Producer Alan Greisman stated as soon as whereas in Hawaii, Chevy “had any individual ship him coke in a particular shaving cream can, which he might twist in a sure approach and get to the coke.”
“Once in a while, we’d have some cocaine flown in from the mainland. Mail’s right here!” Chevy confirmed.
Chevy’s brother, Ned, remembered a time he visited his brother in Los Angeles and witnessed drug use at a gathering.
“Within the heart of the desk there was a lazy Susan,” he remembered. “There was a pyramid. That pyramid was cocaine.”
Whereas engaged on the 1981 movie Fashionable Issues, Greisman and producer Michael Shamberg stated Chevy had a problem with the script one evening earlier than filming started.
“We begin to go over the script, web page by web page, and Chevy pours coke on the desk and begins sniffing it, as if you’re speculated to be having a rational dialogue concerning the film … and he’s simply snorting coke like there’s no tomorrow,” Greisman stated.
Shamberg stated that Chevy didn’t share the cocaine with anybody else. “Who does cocaine alone, in entrance of different folks?” he questioned.
Chevy was later handled on the Betty Ford Clinic for his cocaine dependancy after docs introduced it to Jayni’s consideration. He left the power after per week.
The Terry Sweeney Incident
Director Marina Zenovich known as consideration to the Terry Sweeney incident that Chevy Chase was concerned in on SNL when he returned to visitor host in 1985, the place Chevy recommended an offensive skit about Sweeney’s sexuality. (Sweeney made historical past as the primary overtly homosexual forged member on SNL.)
“You stated one thing to Sweeney like, ‘Oh, you’re the homosexual man. Why don’t we ask if in case you have AIDS? And each week, we weigh you,’” Zenovich stated.
“I believe Chevy was simply being Chevy,” Lorne Michaels stated of the incident. “We might say horrible issues as a result of that’s what would make us snicker.”
“Terry Sweeney. He was very humorous. This man, I don’t suppose he’s alive anymore Terry Sweeney. I hope he isn’t as a result of I don’t need you speaking to him about this,” Chevy stated earlier than Zenovich knowledgeable him Sweeney continues to be alive.
Zenovich then learn an excerpt from a ebook detailing the alleged incident, however Chevy remembered some issues otherwise.
“None of that’s true,” Chevy claimed. “I’d do not forget that. Yeah, that I used to be offended, that I needed to apologize to him. Good God, Chevy, what’s unsuitable with you? That’s simply not true. My reminiscence is, he’s mendacity. He’s not telling the reality. That isn’t me, that isn’t how I’m. And if I’m that approach, my life has modified as a result of I’ve to stay with that now for the remainder of my f***ing life since you guys acquired a ebook out and browse it to me.”
Sweeney declined to take part within the documentary.
Chevy Chase Detailed Alleged Abuse as a Youngster
Chevy Chase claimed his stepfather, John Cederquist, would “lash out” at him when he was a toddler and perceived the actor as “insolent.” Chevy recalled an alleged incident the place Cederquist “began slapping me throughout the again of the pinnacle.”
He additionally alleged his mom, Cathalene Parker Browning, bodily abused him.
“The primary time we stayed collectively, the primary time I went to wake him up, he shuddered,” Jayni stated. “And he defined, ‘Nicely, my mom would wake me up slapping me.’ From the time he was somewhat man, wham.”
“Our mom was a bag of cats. Actually on the schizoid spectrum,” Chevy’s half-brother, additionally named John Cedarquist, stated.
“I felt like this was an out-of-control girl, who I look again on, and I say, ‘I really feel sorry for her.’ She had her personal points. Dangerous ones, however she was bodily abusive to me,” Chevy claimed.
The ‘Group’ Drama Was Addressed
Group director Jay Chandrasekhar defined what led to Chevy Chase leaving Group for good.
“[Dan] Harmon writes this, a blackface hand-puppet routine,” Chandrasekhar defined of a season 4 episode, during which Chevy used a racial slur in between filming scenes. “The character is somewhat tone deaf on this factor. Now had it been Chevy in his heyday, he would’ve been completely nice. He stated one thing to Yvette [Nicole Brown]. I do know that there was a historical past between these two round race, and she or he acquired up and stormed out of there. Chevy storms off.”
“The producer stated Yvette wouldn’t come again on set until Chevy apologized,” he continued. “He comes again on the set, and he goes, ‘Hey man, I didn’t say something.’ And I’m like: ‘No, I do know. I do know.’ He goes, ‘You recognize me and Richard Pryor, I used to name Richard Pryor the n-word. He used to name me The Honkey, and we cherished one another.’ And I’m like, ‘I do know, man. I really like that bit.’”
“I stated, you already know, can now we have somewhat apology? He goes, ‘For what?’ I stated, ‘Can we simply make the goddamn present?’”
Chandrasekhar stated the subsequent day, Chevy confirmed as much as set offended.
“Any individual has leaked that there was a racial incident to The Hollywood Reporter at two within the f***ing morning. There are 50-75 extras there so that you’re like, this shouldn’t have occurred. He comes storming onto the set and he goes, ‘Who f***ed me over? and he goes, “One in every of you mom f***ers stated to The Hollywood Reporter, my profession is ruined. I’m ruined.’ Prefer it’s a full meltdown. ‘F*** all of you.’ And I’m like, ‘Alright let’s shoot the scene.’ He by no means ended up coming again after that.”
In a subsequent interview with The New York Instances following the documentary’s launch, Chase stated of his exit, “It was too nice a misunderstanding of what I used to be saying and never saying. I believed that there was at the least one individual — and one other who, for some ungodly purpose, didn’t get me, didn’t know who I used to be, or didn’t understand for one second I’m not racist. They had been too younger to concentrate on my work. As a substitute, there was some kind of visceral response from them.”
