It’s a macabre but nonetheless resolute fact — and it came directly, unprompted, from Chase, a friend of artsmeme (F.O.A.M.).
(She is also one of artsmeme’s favorite subjects.)
Barrie Chase, one of Hollywood’s most precious jewels as a dancer, now 90 and fit as a fiddle, admitted it herself. Speaking of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Chase said, “I am the only one of the movie’s principal actors still alive. ”
That includes:
Spencer Tracey, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Jim Backus, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Selma Diamond, Peter Falk, Paul Ford, Stan Frieberg, Leo Gorcey, Sterling Holloway, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Arnold Stang, The Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Morey Amsterdam, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, Ben Lessy, and a slew of character actors, several of them vaudevillians, to total a cast of 108.
Chase’s deadpanned twist with comic Dick Shawn (whom she loved) is a cult item. Now we can see it on the big screen of the newly refurbished Egyptian Theatre, in our first visit there since Netflix took over its ownership and management.
Netflix removed the Egyptian’s balcony, a personal favorite for viewing movies. Let’s see how Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad looks on the big screen followed by a Q&A with Barrie Chase, Stanley Kramer’s widow, Karen Sharpe-Kramer and their daughter Kat Kramer, Buddy Hackett’s son, actor and comedian Sandy Hackett, hosted by screenwriter Scott Alexander.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World | American Cinematheque, Egyptian Theatre | Friday Dec 22
I’m a big fan of Barrie’s and of the film. My parents to me to see it when it opened at The Cinerama Dome. As there is alot of general craziness, heightened hysteria, and mayhem throughout, her deadpan performance and the genius of Dick Shawn is a fun juxtaposition.