One of the most blatant running gags throughout the National Lampoon’s Vacation series of films is the obvious fact that the Griswold children are played by different actors in every entry of the series, while the parents remain consistently Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo. This was not the original intention as Anthony Michael Hall was offered the role of Rusty for the second entry in the series European Vacation, but he declined for his role in Weird Science.
This paved the way for actor Jason Lively, who got the biggest break of his career when he took over the role of Rusty in this film. He and his screen sister Dana Hill at least somewhat resembled the original actors, whereas future performers in the roles of Rusty and Audrey seemed to be most likely cast if they in no way showed any similarities to previous actors.
Lively both capably handled the role and made it his own as he gave Rusty the air of a metalhead of the MTV generation. Unfortunately, his success in this role didn’t translate to many other memorable roles – and in fact none that I’ve ever seen. Night of the Creeps apparently has a bit of a cult following but – search me!
When I got the chance to meet Jason at the Chiller Theatre show in Parsippany on April 18, 2009, I had no qualms about shelling out the $20 for a signed photo of Jason Lively on the nice cast shot from National Lampoon’s European Vacation seen above, especially since he’s one of those ‘sane’ actors who will gladly pose for a picture with you when you make a purchase.
I also found that Jason Lively was one of the nicest celebrities of the day, very friendly and engaging – remarking how much he enjoys meeting fans and seeing the cool memorabilia that they are carrying with them. He noted that my KISS View Master slides must be ultra rare.
When I asked him about the premature death of his co-star Dana Hill, who had played Audry in European Vacation, he grew pensive and told me how he had found out about her death while in Las Vegas – visiting the set of Vegas Vacation of all things. They had even talked about Dana, only to find out just days later that she had passed away.
It was great to meet Jason Lively and interesting to converse with him. As Chevy Chase said best, “Good talk, Russ.”
Celebs of the Chiller Theatre will continue…
I taught Jason in both 6th and 7th grade and was just playing on the computer and came upon this blog. If you see him, please tell him I said hello and am proud of him!!!! Thanks.
Robin Contino Walling
November 17th, 2010