Hip, hip hooray for Christmas Vacation. While the National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise produced a variety of hits, it’s safe to say the holiday installment (which is included in the Warner Bros. Holiday Gift Guide) is the most beloved.
From quotable moments to laugh-out-loud lines, the 1989 film has found its place among Christmas classics. With Chevy Chase back as the fearless leader of the Griswolds and an all-star cast of comedians just trying to make it through family dinner, there’s something relatable for everyone in the film.
While Clark is definitely off somewhere dreaming to “Mele Kalikimaka,” the actors behind the family have found Hollywood success. So grab your Wally World mug and some egg nog, and read on for what the Christmas Vacation cast has been up to.
Chevy Chase – Clark
Chevy Chase has worked steadily in Hollywood since his National Lampoon days. While the early ’80s and ’90s were Chase’s peak, the decade after found him taking roles in Snow Day, before being relegated to small guest appearances in TV shows like Law & Order and Chuck.
His biggest post-Lampoon gig was obviously on Community playing Pierce Hawthorne from 2009 to 2014, a career point also mired with drama – namely, a very public feud with creator Dan Harmon.
Chase played the mysterious repairman in both the first and second installations of comedy flick Hot Tub Time Machine, and brought back Clark in this year’s Vacation re-boot.
The 72-year-old founding Not Ready For Primetime Player also showed up for the show’s 40th anniversary, but doesn’t appear to have anything else currently in the pipeline.
Beverly D’Angelo – Ellen
One thing is for certain when it comes to Beverly D’Angelo: at 64, she’s still as beautiful as ever. An established stage actress, D’Angelo returned to theatre in the ’90s, and even received a Theatre World Award in 1994 for off-Broadway play Simpatico. She had a recurring role in the 2000s in Law & Order: SVU as a defense attorney, and went toe-to-toe with Ari as Babs Miller throughout Entourage‘s entire run.
D’Angelo appeared in films like American History X, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, and The House Bunny, and, most recently, popped up as the character Lorraine on Mom.
Chase and D’Angelo were set to re-team for Chev & Bev, a comedy about two retirees whose life of relaxation and early bird specials is interrupted to raise their grandchildren. A pilot was filmed and anticipation was high, but ABC ultimately passed on giving the series an order. The reunion was instead left to only a few short moments in the aforementioned Vacation, but the duo has long remained friends.
Juliette Lewis – Audrey
Lewis, now 42, was nominated for an Academy Award for 1991’s Cape Fear, and then appeared in big hits like 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape before sending America into a tizzy with 1994’s Natural Born Killers. Some of her other early films included The Basketball Diaries and The Other Sister. Throughout the past decade she’s popped up in rom-coms on the big screen, while taking on dramatic roles in television series like The Firm.
Lewis will star again in the upcoming second season of Secrets and Lies as Detective Andrea Cornell, but is also focusing on her music career. For several years she fronted a rock band called Juliette and the Licks before branching out on her own. Terra Incognita, her first solo album, was released in 2009.
Johnny Galecki – Rusty
Galecki, AKA National Lampoon‘s Rusty number 3, is doing quite well these days. The Big Bang Theory star negotiated his way to a $1 million dollars per-episode of the CBS comedy just last year. The headline-making salary even comes with a share in over 1% of the show’s back-end profits. Not too shabby.
The 40-year-old’s immediate post-Christmas Vacation career included a 93-episode run as David on Roseanne, in which he appeared as Darlene’s boyfriend, then-husband, from seasons 4 to 9.
He’s popped up in movies like Vanilla Sky and Bounce, and even played a fictional(?) version of himself on Entourage‘s 2011 season.
Nabbing the part of Leonard Hofstadter in 2006, however, has really being his acting piece de resistance. Galecki is set to appear next in the third installment of the Ring horror series.
Diane Ladd – Nora
When Ladd, now 79, appeared in Christmas Vacation as Chase’s mom, she was coincidentally, only seven years older than the star. The highly regarded actress has appeared in a variety of television movies over the past two decades, but some of her most beloved work since the 1989 film has been with her daughter, Laura Dern.
The pair were the first-ever mother-daughter duo to be nominated for Academy Awards for the same film or even in the same year for 1991’s Rambling Rose. Ladd and Dern re-teamed again from 2011-2013 on the latter’s show Englightened. Ladd appeared on 18 episodes of the HBO series as her daughter’s mother, a role she was obviously well prepared for.
The duo even received adjoining stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with Dern’s father and Ladd’s ex-husband Bruce Dern in 2010.
Ladd has two movies set for 2016, and she’ll next appear in David O. Russell’s latest Jennifer Lawrence vehicle, Joy.
Doris Roberts – Francis
Ninety years old and still kickin’, Doris Roberts has had a storied career. She’s best known, obviously, as Ray Romano’s meddling mother Marie Barone from long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. The role earned her four Emmys and a total of seven nominations.
Since the show’s end in 2005, she’s appeared in everything from bro comedy Grandma’s Boy to episodes of Law & Order and several Hallmark Christmas movies.
Old age hasn’t slowed Roberts down one bit – she still takes guest arcs on tv sitcoms, and was in SEVEN projects in 2014 alone. Next up, she’ll star in senior comedy Old Soldiers, which is currently in pre-production.
In addition to the screen, the actress regularly worked in theatre until about 2009, and has written a cookbook.
Randy Quaid – Eddie
The sad story of Randy Quaid is fairly well known at this point, as his legal saga has garnered plenty of headlines throughout the years. While he had big roles in the ’90s with films like Kingpin and Independence Day, Quaid’s work in Hollywood slowed after 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, before ending completely in 2009.
Quaid and his wife Evi have sparked fan concern over their descent into paranoia.
The conspiracy theory has inadvertently led to several run-ins with the law, and ultimately ended with them fleeing to Vancouver in 2010. After several years as fugitives, the couple was set to be deported back to the United States in October to answer to felony charges stemming from a California trespassing and vandalism arrest. They were subsequently arrested trying to re-enter the States, and then released on bail.
Miriam Flynn – Catherine
64-year-old Flynn does a lot of voice work, most notably as Maa in 1995’s Babe (the movie about a pig), and is the sound behind Grandma Longneck in the animated Land Before Time series. Other voice acting roles have included Disney’s DuckTales, Taz-Mania and Casper.
For 2001-2005 she appeared on Fox sitcom Grounded for Life as Sister Helen, the nun and principal at the Finnerty kids school. In 2012 she had an arc on Suburgatory, and has most recently popped up in episodes of Bones, Scandal, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Murder in the First.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus – Margo Chester
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the gift that keeps on giving. At 54, the actress remains a comedy powerhouse. One of the most nominated actresses in Emmy Award history (she’s gotten 20 nods), Louis-Dreyfus has taken home the coveted trophy four years in a row since 2012.
The year after Christmas Vacation, Louis-Dreyfus first stepped into Elaine Benes‘ shoes, and she hasn’t slowed down post-Seinfeld. She had another hit on her hands as the titular character in The New Adventures of Old Christine from 2006-2010, before becoming Selena Meyer in current HBO comedy Veep.
Until Veep returns in 2016, fill your Julia quota with her primetime Old Navy spots. Even in jean commercials, she inspires laughs.
Nicholas Guest – Todd Chester
Nicholas has had an impressive career as a voice actor, his resume including several animated Marvel shows, Power Rangers, many video games, and Disney films like Tangled and Frozen.
He was in late ’90s series USA High, and then starred as John Teller from 2008-2011 on Sons of Anarchy. Guest also does a lot of dubbing for films, re-recording dialogue in everything from X-Men to The Hunger Games.
As you might have guessed, the star is the brother of actor Christopher Guest.
Fun fact: he’s also the heir presumptive to the title of Baron Haden-Guest in the British peerage.
In Memory: William Hickey – Lewis; Mae Questel – Bethany; E.G. Marshall – Art; John Randloph – Clark, Sr.
Sadly, several of the Christmas Vacation stars have passed on. Hickey, Questel, Marshall and Randolph were already elderly when they took on their respective roles as the family of Clark and Ellen.
Hickey, whose final film was 1997’s MouseHunt, died later that year. The movie was dedicated to his memory.
Questel, who voiced the original Betty Boop, died at age 89, nine years after appearing as Aunt Bethany. Marshall starred in several episodes of Chicago Hope a few years before passing in 1998, and was an Emmy-Award winner.
Randolph died in 2004 at 88. One of his final film roles was in 1998 rom-com You’ve Got Mail.
Hope you enjoyed our look back at Christmas Vacation. Our friends at Warner Bros. asked us to remind readers that the Christmas Vacation Steel Book Blu Ray is available for purchase here.
