From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Mary Poppins and his own TV show, Barbra celebrates his centenary.
HOLLYWOOD, California---It’s been a long time coming but tomorrow, Saturday, Dick Van Dyke will celebrate his 100th birthday! And to commemorate that landmark occasion, he’s just published his ninth book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life.
He discovered the recipe for a happy life long ago and it’s never become stale. As he shares in his book: "No matter our current circumstances, we all have the capacity for a joyful life. I’ve made it to 99 in no small part because I have stubbornly refused to give into the bad stuff in life: failures and defeats, personal losses, loneliness and bitterness, the physical and emotional pains of ageing. For the vast majority of my years, I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living.” And then, in classic Van Dyke fashion, he adds: “Being alive has been doing life — not like a job but rather like a giant playground."
Just last week, Dick was still at it. Playing and showing us how age doesn’t have to dampen one’s zest for life. He looked terrific, dressed casually and sporting the snazzy white beard he grew a few years ago. Looking nowhere near his age, he could have passed for twenty years younger as he hosted a rip-roaring 2-hour singalong with his quartet, The Vantastix, in his Malibu home. The event was held to raise funds for The Van Dyke Endowment of the Arts and the Dick Van Dyke Museum, now in development. He was in fine form, singing a bunch of his favourite songs in between conversational reflections on life.
“There are several reasons for having these,” he explained, “but mine is to revive the art of conversation. I don't care if you're on a street, you're in a bus or in a restaurant, everybody's looking at their phones. Nobody talks. I've seen young couples having dinner together and they're both looking at their phones. I may be the only person in the United States over 10 who does not have a cell phone. I don't have a phone.”
The audience – many of them kids - was ecstatic as he belted out some of the most famous songs from his storied career in addition to personal favorites. The quartet started by performing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the title song from the actor’s 1968 classic film, and ended with Let’s Go Fly a Kite, the memorable song from Mary Poppins. He also performed other favorites from those movies, including You Two and the unforgettable Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
He’s been singing up a storm since The Vantastix formed in 2000 and, as well as performing around the country and even singing the national anthem at Los Angeles Lakers’ baseball games, they’ve also toured the world. In 2017, Dick released his first solo album in 50 years which has him covering jazz and big band favourites from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s.
He’s always loved singing and that’s what brought him together with his third wife, makeup artist Arlene Singer whom he married in 2012. When they first met, he was 70, she 46, but their ages seemed irrelevant. “I was singing one day and she just joined in. That’s what did it!” he laughed. “She keeps me young because we sing and we dance. She keeps me a teenager.” Married now for 13 years they’re clearly devoted to each other. They do everything together, delighting fans when they post their duets on Instagram.
Singing and dancing isn’t all this centenarian gets up to. Unable to keep still for long, he continues to go to the gymn three times a week. “I don’t know why this is something I still want to do, but it is,” he says. “If I miss too many gymn days, I really can feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there.” He works his way around the entire gymn, starting with the sit-up machine and moving from one machine to the next without a break. “Arlene says I could do 500 sit-ups but that might be exaggerating,” he jokes. “Then I do all the leg machines religiously because my legs are two of my most cherished possessions.”
Those legs helped make him a household name on The Dick Van Dyke Show in which he starred with Mary Tyler Moore. It was there that his acrobatic pratfalls became legendary. He believes physical comedy is an innate skill, rather than one that can be taught. “I think you have to have it in you. It’s like an instinct. I was practicing falls when I was a little kid, copying Laurel and Hardy. I just loved all that.”
He has often cited Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton and Carl Reiner as his greatest influences. He even once called Stan Laurel and admitted he’d stolen some of his moves over the years. ‘Yes, I know,’ chuckled Laurel who’d been watching Dick’s capers in the tv show.
Last week in his home, Dick revealed that he had been offered the lead role in 1976’s The Omen. When he declined, it went to Gregory Peck. “I didn't want to do that kind of movie. It just didn't fit my taste.”
He also admitted one of his biggest regrets was turning down the opportunity to work with Cary Grant, whom he had met while performing on Broadway. “He was the best looking guy in the world, and I just liked the way he dressed and acted and everything. We got to be good friends. He asked me to do a movie with him, and I can't remember why I said no. I really regret that.”
Another huge regret was missing the chance to work with Sophia Loren, thanks to an agent who rejected the offer without consulting him.
“I'm still mad about that!” he laughed. “My agent called me one day, and he said, ‘I had a call from Sophia Loren's manager, she wants to do a movie with you.’ And I said something like, ‘When do we start?’ He said, ‘I turned it down. You would've had to take second billing.’ I said, ‘I don't care if they mention my name! I would've paid them!’ I never forgave him for that. He turned down a movie with Sophia Loren! Can you believe that? I didn't even get to meet her.”
So here he is – Peter Pan, the man who never really grew up – still entertaining us with his ageless blend of charm and joy, singing and dancing and making us laugh with his zany humour. Yet he regrets the lack of truly funny comedians today. Very few make him laugh. “Good guys like Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams are gone,” he rues. “They were sensational. And I always loved Peter Sellers. All those guys, all those comedians, all my old friends gone. I've outlived everybody. I’m all by myself!”
He hasn’t changed much over the years. Yes, he’s older but he still possesses the same appealing qualities that always made a person warm to him instantly. I first interviewed him soon after I came to Hollywood and despite his fame I found him to be exceptionally humble, a rarity in the world in which he moved. He had one of the biggest laughs I’d ever heard and his wide smile lit up the room. Over a couple of hours we discussed the films he had made and what he felt were his biggest accomplishments. And he was remarkably open, candid like few others I’d met until then.
A few years later I took my BBC crew onto the location set of the Stanley Kramer-directed The Runner Stumbles, a tense drama in which Dick played a parish priest accused of murdering the nun with whom he had fallen in love. It was a major departure from anything he’d done before and it had taken a lot of persuasion from Kramer before he agreed to tackle the role. Yet the more he talked with me, the more I became aware of his spiritual side rising to the surface. And you might be surprised to learn that from an early age he had once harboured the ambition of becoming a priest.
When he turned 11, he attended a summer Bible school and decided to read through the entire Bible. “I struggled through the various books, asked questions, and when I reached the end I had no idea what any of it meant.” His efforts to find answers to life’s big questions kept him connected with the church. “The subject intrigued me intellectually,” he admitted. “But pretty soon I lost the fervour that inspired me to carry around a Bible and think deep thoughts. I joined the drama club instead and found my true calling.”
Still, he’s remained involved with his church community and for years has continued to show up to teach Sunday school lessons at the church where he was an elder.
(c) Grunge
In 1968, 007 producer Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli offered him the chance to replace Sean Connery as James Bond. Dick turned down the offer, asking Broccoli: "Have you heard my British accent?" Broccoli had. He’d already seen Mary Poppins in which the actor played Bert, the cockney chimney sweep. (His cockney in Mary Poppins later came second in a poll of worst accents in film — topped only by Connery’s American accent in The Untouchables.) Looking back, he thinks he probably could have played 007 but doubts audiences would have gone for him. Still, he wishes he had taken a chance .
Mary Poppins marked a special time in the comedy legend’s career. He told me that working with Julie Andrews was “an absolute dream. I love the characterisation she gave to the role because when I had read the book I pictured a nanny who was probably in her ‘50s, a grey haired, kindly type. I thought it was a stroke of genius on Walt Disney's part to pick Julie. She is from now on for all time, Mary Poppins.
“It’s one of the few projects I’ve ever worked on,” he mused, “where I knew ahead of time that it was going to be very, very good. The only misgivings I had was that I worked with an almost entirely British cast. At the time, I thought that Ron Moody should have been cast in my part. He was such a great Fagin and I saw him as a great chimney sweep. He would have been awfully good. I'm glad they didn't think of it!”
The film marked the start of a lifelong friendship with Walt Disney. Dick once told me the reason he and Walt Disney hit it off from the start was because they both felt as if they were kids. And inadvertently that was how he landed the role. He’d given an interview in which he bemoaned that there wasn’t enough good entertainment for kids. "Walt Disney heard it, called me up, and gave me the part. It was that simple! I went into his office, and he had watercolor paintings of all the scenes in the movie. By the time we got through with that, I was so excited! We both admitted that we were just pretending to be grown up and that we were really 13-year old kids inside and that’s why we loved to make entertainment for children. I got to know him pretty well and I loved him. He was like a big kid, full of enthusiasm.”
Walt Disney is no longer alive but his legacy – his own giant playground - survives. Disneyland have sent out an invitation to ‘join fellow fans on Sunday, December 21, for a Jolly Holiday at Disneyland in honor of Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday!’
When he turned 98, he told Variety, “I enjoyed everything I did, and not a lot of people can say that. I think of how rare it is that a person gets to do for a living, what they love to do. Most people have to go sit in an office. I look forward to getting up every morning and going to work, because it's what I would've done for nothing.”
Despite his centenarian status, he says he may never retire. "It’s my hobby. It’s my life. I love it."
His enjoyment is palpable in everything he does and he believes that joy transmits to audiences. “People can tell how you’re feeling. They can see beyond an actor’s performance. They sense if you’re having a good time and I try to avoid things that aren’t any fun.”
Last December, in pursuit of further fun, one of his biggest fans, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, invited him to appear in the band’s music video for their song All My Love. They had a whale of a time shooting the video in the back garden of Dick’s Malibu home and he and Arlene jointly produced it.
The coastal town of Malibu has been his home for 30 years and I’ve run into him a few times there, shopping at the local supermarket. But there’s a price to pay for living in such an idyllic area and over the years he’s had to endure several catastrophic wildfires. Last December, he had to evacuate from his home as the flames from a swiftly-moving wildfire headed his way. He told the local news, "I was trying to crawl to my car. I had exhausted myself. I couldn't get up. Three neighbors came and carried me out." His home survived but earlier this year, he had to evacuate again as the historic Palisades fire quickly spread through the Malibu Canyon area, having devastated the adjoining town of Pacific Palisades. Thankfully, his house, like its owner, remained standing.
These days, he watches the news more than scripted television. “I try to keep up with what’s happening in the world, which is frightening.” A longtime Democrat, last year he endorsed Kamala Harris for president and was greatly disappointed when she lost the election.
As he enters his 10th decade, he ponders his legacy. A huge amount of his mail these days comes from children. And that makes him especially proud. “I left a good example for a young generation,” he has reflected. “I can tell by the mail I get from kids that I’ve had a positive effect. Kids want to emulate that behavior. And that makes what we accomplish worthwhile.“
It’s in his new book that he best expresses how he hopes he'll be remembered:
"I don’t care how long the memory of me, Dick Van Dyke, lasts in the world after I’m gone," he writes. "I care about the survival of what I’ve shared with the world, humor, compassion, a zest for living, a love of music. For as long as children are proudly belting out their new word, ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, or singing and skipping along to Chim Chim Cher-ee, the most important part of me will always be alive."
Just like Peter Pan, he’s an eternal inspiration.
Happy birthday Dick Van Dyke!
Till next time, Shavuatov.