Chase was born in Great Lakes, Illinois but moved to Pasadena, California as a child. She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1977 and J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981.
She 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 1992-1995 and Whitney Houston's Brown House Productions from 1995-2000. She formed her own company, Martin Chase Productions in 2000.
Chase volunteers for a number of organizations and is currently a "producing mentor" for the University of Southern California.
