Chevy Chase

Highest Rated: 93% National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

Lowest Rated: Not Available

Birthday: Oct 8, 1943

Birthplace: Lower Manhattan, New York, USA

With the words, "Good evening - I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not," comedic actor Chevy Chase struck a chord with television audiences who delighted each week as the accident-prone goofball stumbled his way through sketches in the early days of "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975- ). With his aloof wit and detached demeanor, he represented a radical departure from angry comics of the day like George Carlin and Richard Pryor. Leaving "SNL" at the height of his fame in 1976, Chase segued smoothly into stardom on the big screen in such comedy triumphs as "Foul Play" (1975), "Caddyshack" (1980) and "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983). He continued to rise with his classic turn as the bumbling investigative reporter, "Fletch" (1985), and reprised the bespectacled doofus Clark Griswald for "European Vacation" (1985). But from there, his career hit a long, slow slide with movies like "The Funny Farm" (1988), "Caddyshack II" (1988) and "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" (1992). Following a short-lived stint as a late night talk show host - a televised train wreck if there ever was one - Chase wallowed in the nadir of a career that at once looked bright and everlasting. Meanwhile, his reported reputation for being difficult and his addiction to cocaine was chronicled in numerous tell-all "SNL" books. But he emerged decades later with an acclaimed supporting turn on the hit show "Community" (NBC, 2009-15; Yahoo!, 2015), which showed that Chase's brilliance as a giant in the pantheon of great twentieth century comedians had not waned.