Chevy Chase’s Awful Behaviour On Christmas Vacation Set Revealed

Chevy Chase is a bit like Marmite in the movie business. If no one at all liked Marmite.

Offering a new perspective on the oft-maligned actor is director Chris Columbus, who has revealed why he quit a big break directing Chase in the John Hughes-produced ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ in 1989 after a few weeks on the job.

Columbus spoke to James Hughes, son of the 'Ferris Bueller’ legend, in an oral history article for Chicago magazine about the making of 'Home Alone’, which is 25 years old this year.

The director, who went on to helm movies like 'Mrs Doubtfire’ and two of the 'Harry Potter’ series (Chamber of Secrets and The Philosopher’s Stone) tells it best in his own words:

“In 1989, I directed 'Heartbreak Hotel’,and it was a disaster. It opened on a Friday, and by Wednesday it was only playing at two o’clock in the afternoon,” he says.

“Around that time, John Hughes sent me the script for 'Christmas Vacation’. I love Christmas, so to do a Christmas comedy had been a dream.

“I went out to dinner with Chevy Chase. To be completely honest, Chevy treated me like dirt. But I stuck it out and even went as far as to shoot second unit. Some of my shots of downtown Chicago are still in the movie.

“Then I had another meeting with Chevy, and it was worse. I called John and said, 'There’s no way I can do this movie. I know I need to work, but I can’t do it with this guy’.

“John was very understanding. About two weeks later, I got two scripts at my in-laws’ house in River Forest. One was 'Home Alone’, with a note from John asking if I wanted to direct. I thought, Wow, this guy is really supporting me when no one else in Hollywood was going to. John was my saviour.”

Columbus took up 'Home Alone’, a genuinely classic Christmas movie, and his career took off from there.

Chase has much history for being, shall we say, difficult.

Though they’re reportedly more friendly now, while Chase was on 'Saturday Night Live’, he had a fist fight with Bill Murray.

In an interview, Murray said of his co-star: “When you become famous, you’ve got like a year or two where you act like a real a**hole.

“You can’t help yourself. It happens to everybody. You’ve got like two years to pull it together - or it’s permanent.”

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Image credits: Rex Features/AP