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Chase, a Clifton native, turns 72 Tuesday.
David Chase (Davide DeCesare), a writer, director and TV producer who has worked in television for 40 years, was born Aug. 22, 1945.
Chase has produced and written for such shows as "The Rockford Files," "I'll Fly Away" and "Northern Exposure." He has created two original series. The first, "Almost Grown" aired for 10 episodes in 1988 and 1989. Chase is best known for his second original series, the HBO drama, "The Sopranos" which aired for six seasons from 1999 to 2007. He has won seven Emmy Awards.
Chase was born into a working class Italian-American family in Mount Vernon, N.Y. An only child, he grew up in Clifton and North Caldwell.
He graduated from high school in 1964 and attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. He worked as a drummer during this period, and had aspirations of being a professional musician. After two years, he transferred to New York University, where he pursued a career in film. He went on to attend Stanford University's School of Film.
Thirty episodes of "The Sopranos" are explicitly credited to Chase; however, as the show's creator, showrunner and head writer, he had a major role in all the scripts, including producing and touching up each script's final draft. He also directed the pilot episode and the series finale (both of which he also wrote).
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