Chevy Chase Remembers Gerald Ford as "Sweet Man"
Chevy Chase, who famously lampooned the then-president during
Saturday Night Live's early days, remembers Gerald R. Ford, who died Tuesday night, as "a very, very sweet man." Speaking to Reuters, Chase says his bumbling take was born of Ford's status as the United States' first nonelected commander in chief, and Nixon's successor and eventual pardoner. "I never felt that he deserved to be there to begin with," he says. "That was just the way I felt then as a young man and as a writer and a liberal."
Years later, Chase says, he and Ford became friends. "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 whatnot. We kept in touch, and he was just a terrific guy."
