Comedy legend Chevy Chase made a rare public appearance this week at the 40th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. The 82-year-old comedian attended the February 26 event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was honored for his lasting impact on film and television.
Chevy Chase Arrives in Wheelchair at Screening of ‘I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not’
As per photos obtained by The Daily Mail, Chase arrived in a wheelchair for a screening of “I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not” at Savor Cinema.
Dressed casually in jeans, a pink button-down shirt, a blazer, and a white cap, Chase greeted attendees before later standing inside the venue to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award.
How Chevy Chase Survived a Life-Threatening Heart Crisis
GettyIn December 2023, Chase’s manager told the Daily Mail that the actor remains in “amazing” health and uses a wheelchair primarily when traveling long distances.
The update came two years after a serious medical crisis. In 2021, Chase was hospitalized with near-fatal heart failure during the COVID-19 pandemic. He later described the experience as having “came back from the dead.”
Chase spent five weeks in the hospital as doctors treated his heart condition.
In the documentary “I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not,” his daughter Caley Chase reflected on the frightening period.
“He has basically come back from the dead. He had heart failure,” she said.
His wife, Jayni, recalled the moment they realized something was seriously wrong. “Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy; when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat.”
GettyThe health scare marked one of the most difficult chapters in Chase’s life, adding another layer to the story told in the documentary.
Speaking with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the festival, Chase said participating in the documentary was not entirely his idea.
“Here’s the thing — they asked me to do it. I liked it, it’s very real,” he said. “I mean, honestly, my life is what it is. I like my life.”
Chase added, “I can’t imagine what could have been hard about it. It’s not like I came out of prison and didn’t want anybody to know.”
The “Saturday Night Live” alum has had a career spanning decades, from sketch comedy to film stardom. The documentary revisits both the highs of his fame and the personal challenges that shaped him.
Inside ‘I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not’
The documentary “I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not,” which premiered on CNN last month, takes a candid look at Chase’s life, career, and the contradictions that have long defined him.
“I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not” also revisits Chase’s 2021 health scare. He was placed in an eight-day coma after suffering heart failure and spent five weeks hospitalized.
“According to the doctors, my memory would be shot from it,” he said in the film. “That’s what’s happened here.”
The documentary also addresses Chase’s childhood, including abuse he says he endured from his mother, Cathalene Parker, who died in 2005.
“I felt like this was an out-of-control woman, who I look back on and I say, ‘I feel sorry for her,’” he said. “She had her own issues. Bad ones, but she was physically abusive to me.”
Director Marina Zenovich Explores the Man Behind Chevy Chase’s Public Persona
Director Marina Zenovich said she set out to understand the person behind the public image.
“I wanted to figure out who was the real person behind the conflicted, guarded and somewhat fragile man we see on camera,” Zenovich told Variety in December 2025.
“What was behind the surface of his slightly intimidating superstar bravado? Was there any self-awareness there? Having interviewed Chevy at length, I have to say that yes, it’s all there — and a whole lot of pain and heartache too.”
One of the film’s most talked-about moments captures a tense exchange between Chase and Zenovich, during which he told her she was “not bright.”
“I’m complex, and I’m deep, and I can be hurt easily, and I react spontaneously to people who want to figure me out, as it were,” Chase said. “As somebody who will hold up my guard, I’m not going to let anybody figure me out, per se.”
Zenovich later addressed the uncomfortable interaction in the same interview.
“I’d never done an interview where someone was so rude to me,” she said. “But I was so worried going into that first interview with him about how I was going to say to him, like, ‘Everyone thinks you’re an [expletive]’ I thought if I did, he would throw me out of his house. So the minute he said that to me, I had a way in.”
Despite the challenges detailed in the film, Chase appeared composed and reflective as he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award. The appearance marked a rare public moment for the comedy icon, who continues to look back on his life with candor and perspective.
