Chevy Chase, the erstwhile star of National Lampoon’s innumerable-seeming Vacation movies, has a pitch. Ready? “What happens is we’re on a big cruise ship like this—and there’s a fire,” he said at the Britannia Ball aboard the Queen Mary 2 last week. “We jump ship, obviously. It’s called Swiss Family Griswold. We meet Cousin Eddie on the island. He’s been there ever since, an old survivor. They forgot him. So he’s been wandering around.” So far, this sequel hasn’t been deemed seaworthy. “I wish Warners would do it, but they think those movies are long in the tooth.” It’s possible, of course, that Chase feels the call to the sea because his grandfather, Admiral Miles Browning, was Admiral William Halsey’s right-hand man in World War II.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
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• Table of Contents: Jun 11, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!