Posted on 12/27/2006 11:05:07 AM PST by Roberts
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Comedian Chevy Chase, who became famous in the 1970s portraying Gerald Ford as an amiable klutz, praised the former president on Wednesday and said they later became friendly in spite of the biting comedy routines.
Chase, 63, was an original cast member on the trend-setting late-night comedy television show "Saturday Night Live" and frequently opened the show pretending to be Ford stumbling and falling. The parody in 1975-6 helped reinforce a popular image about Ford's clumsiness, even though the president had been a star athlete in college.
"He had never been elected period, so I never felt that he deserved to be there to begin with," the actor said about Ford, who died on Tuesday at age 93. "That was just the way I felt then as a young man and as a writer and a liberal."
"Later on we became friends and he was a very, very sweet man," Chase said in a telephone interview from a Colorado ski resort. "He took my wife and I on a whole lovely trip through Grand Rapids to show us where he had been as a child and what not. We kept in touch and he was just a terrific guy."
Chase, who has since starred in many film comedies, said Ford helped boost his career, but said another politician could have just as easily become the comedic punching bag in such politically turbulent times.
Chase was initially hired as a writer, not an actor but the humor he wrote mocking Ford helped change that.
"I wrote all those Gerald Ford jokes and (producer) Lorne (Michaels) put me on the air," he said. "Doing the stunt falls and stuff ... started me."
"As far as making my career, it could have been anybody who had been a Republican after Nixon and pardoned him."
Yep, Hartman portrayed Clinton a few times on SNL. The one I most associate with the role, though, is Darrell Hammond (sp?).
Although I have a generally favorable opinion of President Bush, and know that his grades in school were better than many that oppose him, and agree that "Bush is dumb" jokes are jokes that only stupid people laugh at...having a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard are far more an indicator of wealthy upbringing and social prominence than they are of intelligence.
Chevy Chase.....didn't he have a career in show business at one time?
re: 10
Hysterical!
Oh how I miss Johnny.
re; 66
Ewwww. I did not need to know that about the Rat.
What movie was Chase good in? Maybe Caddyshack, and that was it. He was vastly overrated as a comedian & as an actor. Especially his stupid late-night show that only lasted for a few days.
But they are also signs of persistence. Neither Gore nor Kerry demonstrated either. Kerry went into the Navy to avoid the draft, probably bercause he couldn't get into a graduate school. To be sure, his first year of service in the Navy was creditable, but thereafter he became a skank.
Who won?
I believe it was broken up. Chase would return to guest host again two years later during the last season of Lorne Michaels' first stint and the last to feature what was left of the original cast (Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi already left before that season). Chase joked about the incident in his monologue and Murray then joined him onstage as they sang a song together and kissed and made up. They both were in Caddyshack that same year. Nobody liked Chevy Chase during SNL's first season. He was a pain in the ass to work with and the cocaine didn't help.
TC
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