Mini IMBD
Alison Chace, born Alison Chace Pulley, was born and raised in the Village of Mariemont, founded Mary Emery in 1923. It was a planned community reminiscent of an English village that was almost exclusively white and middle class, with a very small hand full of divorced families. The population was roughly 3,000.
Alison’s family was one of those few divorced families- her parents divorced when she was five. She comes from a family of non-actors; her father, Tom Pulley, was a self-employed entrepreneur who owned his own industrial laundry business, and her mother was a teacher who later became an executive recruiter, then later achieved her master’s degree and became a school counselor. Her brother Tom Pulley, is a successful investment banker. Chace attended Mariemont High School. Her first acting class was at Cincinnati Conservatroy of Music (CCM) and took a variety of ballet, tap, piano and voice lessons. Her Maternal Grandfather Howard Chace, of whom Alison takes her middle name, was professor of Romance Languages at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and was an author, humorist, pianist and organist who played for silent movies beginning in his young college years. Her Paternal Grandfather, Verlin Pulley, was a successful businessman, the founder of Capitol-Varisty dry cleaning company, which went on to become one of the largest dry cleaning companies in the United States. There are many monuments named in his honor at Miami University. Alison is also a descendent of Abraham Lincoln, thru her Paternal Grandmother, Carola Wood Pulley.
At a young age, Chace often wrote and performed skits for her family. She started acting in Middle School with her first performance as The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and continued performing in school plays throughout graduation. At the young age of 13, Alison was “discovered” by Eileen Ford in a local shopping mall in Cincinnati, while doing a nationwide model search for a contest titled “Face of the 80’s”. She was asked to come to New York City to model. Her mother said no to this, however, 3 years later Alison did fly to NYC to meet personally with Eileen. By that time, Eileen changed her mind and said NO, Alison was “too commercial for NYC and should be in Chicago”. This coming-of-age experience, coupled with her love of acting, was to plant the seeds of Alison’s future acting and producing career.
Having residency in California due to her father living in Tiburon, California, at age 17 Alison left Ohio and applied to University of California schools for college. She was rejected from all of them. Distraught, her mother offered to pay tuition at a private university which has a larger acceptance rate- called University of the Pacific for 2 years. At which point, Alison would need to transfer into the UC system. This is how Alison ended up at UCLA and spent her last 3 years of college there, obtaining her BA in English Literature. Alison did not perform in any theater or anything related to the entertainment industry for her college years. Upon graduation, Alison got a job in sales for Sprint thru the UCLA career center. This turned out to be a much more lucrative option than the struggling actor route. Following Sprint, Alison moved to NYC and obtained a job with Conde Nast in Advertising Sales for their new online divison. Following that, She led the Advertising Sales team for iVillage. All of these experiences taught Alison about (sales skills) and entrepreneurship that she would use later to build her online destinations for women. At the age of 25, Alison became engaged to her college boyfriend and subsequently married one year later. It was only upon marriage, that Alison cut back working full-time and embarked upon 2 years of proper acting training- sometimes attending 10 classes per week, obtaining her long time agent, Tracey Goldblum along the way, and successfully booking commercials (Eileen Ford was right).