- - Chevy Chase Drops Major Reveal About ‘First Real Love’ Blythe Danner

Victoria MillerJanuary 3, 2026 at 7:57 PM

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Chevy Chase has been married to his wife, Jayni, for more than 40 years. But way before that, the actor had a college romance with actress Blythe Danner.

Chase made the reveal in the CNN documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, where he admitted, “Blythe Danner, that was my first real love. She’s a great woman, and I’ll always think highly of her.”

Chase and Danner were both students at New York’s Bard College in the mid-1960s. In the documentary, the Christmas Vacation star’s brother, Ned Chase, noted that the college sweethearts “had different paths post-college.”

“Blythe is a very skilled actress, and Blythe’s career took off almost immediately. Meanwhile, Chevy did not take off immediately,” he said.

Chevy Chase in the mid-1970s. (Photo by Raimondo Borea/Gartenberg Media Enterprises/Getty )Raimondo Borea on Getty Images

While in college, Chase and Danner performed in jazz bands. Chase was even in a band with future Steely Dan members Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

In an interview with Berkshire Fine Arts, Danner confirmed she sang jazz in a band with Chase. “I was always drawn to jazz, instead of folk or even rock,” she said. “I was always singing jazz at Bard and still love jazz."

She also told AARP that she started out in music by performing with her college boyfriend, Chase, who was a drummer and an accomplished pianist. While she told the outlet she “wanted to be a singer,” she got her big break four years out of college in the 1969 Broadway show Butterflies Are Free.

By that time, the actress was dating Bruce Paltrow, and he proposed to her the night the show opened. Danner was married to Paltrow from 1969 until his death in 2002. They welcomed two children in the 1970s: Gwyneth and Jake.

In 2015, Danner told People magazine she wasn’t interested in dating following her husband’s death. “I’m not really shopping for another relationship,” the Meet the Parents actress said. “When you’ve had the best, the heck with the rest, and that's kind of my attitude about it all.”

Chase has been married three times. His first marriage in 1973 was to Susan Hewitt. The actor married his second wife, Jacqueline Carlin, in 1976 at the height of his Saturday Night Live fame. In the documentary, it was revealed that Carlin refused to move to New York City, so Chase left SNLand relocated to Hollywood to be with her. The marriage was over within nine months. Chase then wed Jayni Luke in 1982, and they welcomed daughters Cydney, Caley, and Emily.

In a 2010 interview with Esquire, Chase revealed the secret to his long marriage to Jayni. “I’m still in love with my wife the way I was when I fell in love with her thirty years ago. That's luck,” he said.

While Danner was his first love, Chase described his third wife as "the love of my life" in the CNN documentary.

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This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”