Debra Martin Chase
Debra Martin Chase (born October 11, 1956) is an American motion picture and television producer. Her company, Martin Chase Productions, is affiliated with Universal Television, a division of NBCUniversal Television Group. It was affiliated with the Walt Disney Company from 2001 to 2016. She is the first African-American female producer to have a deal at a major studio. Background Chase was born in Great Lakes, Illinois, but moved with her family as a child to Pasadena, California. 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.”