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Chuck Bass

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Image:Chuck 001.jpg
Charles Bartholomew “Chuck” Bass
Name Charles Bartholomew “Chuck” Bass
Portrayed by Ed Westwick
First Appearance 1.01, 'Pilot'
Age 16-17 (TV), 15-18 (books)

Chuck Bass is a character in the TV series Gossip Girl and the books of the same name. He is played by Ed Westwick in the television show.

Contents

[edit] Book Series

Charles Bartholomew Bass was raised in Manhattan's most elite social circle. He is the son of wealthy businessman Bartholomew Bass and his wife Misty, and has one brother named Donald. Chuck resides with his family at the Plaza Hotel on the Upper East Side and attends school at the Riverside Preparatory School for Boys on the Upper West Side, along with scholarship student Dan Humphrey. Chuck is virtually friendless, but is tolerated by the others because of his family's enormous wealth. He is described as having flamboyant fashion sense, with a penchant for scarves, and has a pet monkey named Sweetie whom he carries around with him everywhere. Lazy and vain, Chuck's only interests are sex and money, and he is often chided by his father for lacking ambition and performing poorly in school. He has a number of bisexual flings with numerous females and males, but his only serious relationship comes near the end of the series, when he begins dating Greg, a student who also briefly had a fling with a then-experimenting Dan Humphrey. Because of his poor grades, Chuck is rejected from every single college he applies to, and is ultimately sent to military school by his furious father. However, in the Gossip Girl spin-off The Carlyles, it is stated that Chuck never showed up to military school, and his whereabouts thereafter are unknown.

[edit] T.V. Series Background

Chuck grew up as the only child of Bart Bass, a self-made billionaire who owns the New York Palace Hotel. Chuck lived amongst equally privileged childhood friends Nate Archibald, Blair Waldorf, and Serena van der Woodsen. Chuck is generally shown as the group's bad boy, and is frequently manipulative. However, later in his Junior and Senior year, a softer side to his personality formed more for people cares about, most notably Nate and Nate's long-time girlfriend Blair.

[edit] T.V. Series

Chuck is portrayed by Ed Westwick in the T.V. Series, which portrays Chuck as softer and nicer than the books. He is also a main character opposed to his role of an antihero in the book series.

[edit] Season 1

In the first episode, Chuck hits on Serena, who has just returned from a year at boarding school. She rejects his advances and storms out on him, and he isn't seen to have any physical attraction to her after that. In the same episode, Chuck also tried to sleep with Jenny Humphrey at the Kiss on the Lips party Blair was hosting. However, he was stopped by Serena's boyfriend and Jenny's older brother Dan, to whom Chuck takes an immediate dislike. Chuck was the only one who knew about Nate and Serena's one night stand, the reason for her leaving town a year ago. However, a furious and hurt Blair also found out and told Dan in the episode The Wild Brunch.

Chuck has a strong loyalty to his lifelong best friend Nate, saving him from trouble when Nate gets into a risky poker game with Carter Baizen. Chuck said that the only things that matter to him are money, the pleasures money brings, and Nate. However, Chuck also cares deeply for Blair. Shortly after she broke up with Nate because of his recurring feelings for Serena, Blair went out to Victrola, the burlesque club that Chuck recently purchased. He then challenges her, causing her to get up on stage with the rest of the dancers. At the end of the night, Blair loses her virginity to Chuck in the back of his limo. Blair warns him to not tell anybody, and once more reconciles with Nate. On Blair's seventeenth birthday, Chuck pulls her aside and awkwardly admits his unwelcome feelings for her, mentioning that he feels sick and can't sleep because of thoughts of her and their night together. This leads Blair to freak out on him. A couple of hours later, Nate fails to show up to the party, instead talking with Jenny. Photos of them hugging are sent around by Gossip Girl, leading Blair to hide out in one of the bedrooms. Chuck gives her a present, the diamond necklace that Blair had been expecting from Nate. The two of them start up a secret affair, though Serena witnesses Blair and Chuck making out at the party.

At the debutante ball, Chuck starts to worry that he will lose Blair to Nate again. Discovering that Nate is pining over Blair again, Chuck attempts to manipulate the events in his favour. However, things backfire and a scene is caused at the ball. When Blair finds out Chuck is behind it, she leaves the ball with Nate. Heartbroken, Chuck leaves New York.

When Chuck returns, he becomes jealous, threatening to tell Nate about his relationship with Blair. Instead, she retorts that she would like to see him try. Vanessa Abrams accidentally caught this conversation on tape while filming a documentary on the school. Trying to make it up to Blair, Chuck buys the tape off Vanessa. However, this tape was actually blank, and Vanessa gave Blair the real one for free. Chuck then decides to exact revenge by sending a tip to Gossip Girl, saying that Blair slept with two guys in only one week. The news spreads like wildfire, and ruins Blair socially within hours. After seeing the bulletin, Nate finds Jenny and asks if it's true. Jenny tells him that Chuck and Blair slept together. This led to Chuck and Nate getting into a fight outside the school, with Nate ending his friendship with Chuck and his relationship with Blair. Blair turns to Chuck when there's no-one else, but he instead rejects her, saying she used to be fascinating to him, but not anymore.

Chuck's father and Serena's mother become engaged, leading the two families to move in together. He begins annoying Serena, particularly because he smokes in her bathroom. He also becomes a brother figure to Eric, something that Serena isn't very happy about. At a family dinner, Serena receives an anonymous package which she opens at the table. It's filled with pornography and she gets mad at Chuck, thinking he was the one who sent it. Chuck insists otherwise and is given a warning by his father. When at school, three crates of champagne are delivered anonymously to Serena. The final straw comes when Eric gives her another of the unsigned packages, this one filled with cocaine. She tells her mother and Bart throws Chuck out. Just after this, Serena discovers that it wasn't Chuck who was sending the packages after all, but her ex-friend Georgina Sparks.

Serena spirals out of control after Georgina continues to blackmail her, and when she spends all night partying, Blair enlists the help of Chuck and Nate. It is revealed that Chuck lost his virginity to Georgina in the sixth grade and he's been 'running from the crazy bitch ever since.' Even though things are still tense between them, Blair suggests that she and Chuck personally find and exact revenge on Georgina. Chuck agrees to this, responding, "Let's get the bitch." When they arrive at the Rolling Stones concert, Georgina has already left with Dan, who has since broken up with Serena after she lied to him.

[edit] Season 2

[edit] Family

[edit] TV series

[edit] Books

  • Bartholomew Bass (father)
  • Misty Bass (mother)
  • Donald Bass (older brother)

[edit] Romantic relationships

[edit] TV series

[edit] Books

[edit] Etymology

  • Charles is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "free man". From "karl", similar to Old English "churl", meaning "man, serf". The first Holy Roman Emperor (seventh to eigth century) Charlemagne Magnus, meaning "Charles the Great") was a powerful German leader who created a more ordered society out of the chaos that followed the fall of Rome.
  • Bartholomew is an English given name that derives from the Aramaic name meaning "son of Tholmai". "Bar" means "son of" in Aramaic, and thus its occurrence in a personal name indicates a patronymic. "Tholmai" is commonly supposed to mean "furrows", and Bartholomew is accordingly read as "son of the furrows", meaning one who is rich in land.
  • Bass is both English and occasionally, Scottish. In the first instance it may have Olde English pre 7th century origins, or it maybe French, and as such was introduced by the Normans after the 1066 Invasion. Taking the latter first as this is the most satisfactory explanation, the derivation is from the French word 'basse' meaning somebody who was both broad and thickset. This word itself is a development of the Latin "bassus", meaning wide, as opposed to tall.
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