Debra Martin Chase
| Debra Martin Chase | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 11, 1956 Great Lakes, Illinois, U.S. |
| Alma mater |
Mount Holyoke College Harvard Law School |
| Occupation | Lawyer, producer |
Debra Martin Chase (born October 11, 1956) is a motion picture and television producer. Her company, Martin Chase Productions, has been affiliated with the Walt Disney Company since 2001 and been based at the ABC Television Network since 2012. She was the first African-American female producer to have a deal at a major studio.
Chase was born in Great Lakes, Illinois, but moved to Pasadena, California as a child. She earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1977 and J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981.
In an interview with Essence magazine 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 and 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 as much experience as possible.
Chase practiced law throughout the 1980s, eventually moving to the film industry when she joined the legal department at Columbia Studios. She ran Denzel Washington's Mundy Lane Entertainment from 1992 to 1995 and Whitney Houston's Brown House Productions from 1995 to 2000. She formed her own company, Martin Chase Productions, in 2000, in California.
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