Beat him, locked in the basement
In a revealing new documentary about his life and career, Chevy Chase claims he was physically abused as a child by his mother and stepfather.
In “I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not,” which debuted Jan. 1 on CNN, Chase and his family and friends said he was beaten, locked in a closet and continually forcibly woken up.
Chase’s parents divorced when he was about four years old, and both quickly remarried. He described his stepfather, John Cederquist, as “humorless.” Chase’s half-brother, also named John Cederquist, said: “My father had a flash of anger and he could lash out with a single punch… He didn’t take anything he considered brazen. Chevy was brazen.”
Chase’s wife, Jayni, said the first time she stayed over at Chase’s house and woke him up, he “shuddered.” “He explained, ‘Well, my mother woke me up by hitting me.’ From the time he was a little boy, boom!she said.
Chase’s mother, Cathalene Browning, is described in the documentary as “a bag of cats, definitely on the schizoid spectrum.”
“This was an out-of-control woman who I look back on and say I feel sorry for her,” Chase said. “She had her own problems – bad ones. But she physically abused me.”
Peter Aaron, a friend of the comedian, said Chase told him stories about the “terrible things that would happen to him as a young man — things like being locked in the closet.” Chase’s brother, Ned, added, “There was a basement and he was sent there because he was really messing up in school.”
In one interview with the New York Times Published Friday, Chase alluded to being “hit on your bare butt and the backs of your legs with a yardstick until they were so bruised that someone else noticed.”
Chase was supposed to be punished for getting bad grades in school, but ironically he said he was failing academically because of the abuse. “While others were focusing on their homework, I didn’t have a chance to do that,” he said. “I was always worried about something or the other that had to do with my own health.”
Chase described an incident where he and Ned were having breakfast and their stepfather came downstairs “and started hitting me in the back of the head.” Ned recalled, “I stood up and made it clear that I didn’t think this was the time for corporal punishment. And John Cederquist sat down, and I sat down.”
“I knew in that moment that Ned was there for me,” Chase said. “That was a big moment for us.”
When asked by director Marina Zenovich if there was a time when Chase walked away from his mother and stepfather and never saw them again, Chase pretended to swat a fly on his forehead and then licked his fingers as if he were eating the imaginary insect. “Sorry?” he asked, half smiling.
Chase’s family and friends described how his trauma shaped his comedy – a “coping mechanism” – and how it may have contributed to his struggles with depression later in life. “It shaped him. He used comedy, he used humor as a way to mask what was going on inside. And that continues. That continues today,” said Emily Chase, his youngest daughter. “He makes jokes from morning to night, and you don’t know what’s going on. … That’s how he always dealt with problems in his life.”
“I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not” is now available to watch on CNN’s streaming platforms.
