Background
Chase was born in Great Lakes, Illinois, but moved to Pasadena, California as a child. She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1977 and J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981.
In an interview with Essence in 1997, she told journalist Audrey Edwards, "I'm the kid who was in the movie theater every Saturday." Debra adds, "I've been a movie fanatic since I was a child, and my images of the world were shaped by what I saw on the screen. I want to do my part to see that Blacks are not only represented in film but also enhance it."
About first starting out, Chase has said, “I didn’t know the mechanics of how things worked. So I read books, went to seminars, met with anybody who’d meet with me just to learn information,” said in an interview with George Alexander (490) Chase was able to meet with the general counsel at Columbia Pictures through a good friend’s sister. Later she met with and became the executive assistant to Frank Price, chairman of Columbia Pictures. Chase worked with Price for a year and after Sony brought Mark Canton in for the top job and Frank put Chase on the creative staff, before leaving the company.(Alexander, George)
A few of her favorite directors include Carl Franklin, Steven Soderbergh, and Martin Scorsese. Chase uses her work in film & television to deliver positive messages. "It's immensely rewarding to know that you are having a huge impact on the self-image, values and life perspective of kids," she contends. In an interview with George Alexander, Chase offers advice for aspiring producers, encouraging those who are interested in a film career to seek out as much experience as possible.
Read more about this topic: Debra Martin Chase
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)