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A song he wrote was performed live by a rock-and-roll idol on The Ed Sullivan Show. Along with his fellow chimney sweeps, he danced and cavorted on the rooftops of London. He even constructed a airborne automobile. And yet he (sometimes) couldn’t see an ottoman sitting right in front of him and tripped over it.
In spite of his problematic past with living room furniture, Dick Van Dyke will celebrate his 100th birthday tomorrow. The comedy legend and winner of Tony, Emmy, and Grammy awards recently released a retrospective book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life. And this weekend he’ll be the focus of a new documentary, Dick Van Dyke 100th Celebration, playing in theatres nationwide.
In a TV, stage, and film career that’s lasted over 70 years, Dick has given audiences many memorable performances both funny and dramatic. The Danville, Illinois native got hooked on performing in high school and entertained servicemen for the Army Special Services during World War II. After the war ended, Van Dyke teamed with Phil Erickson to form a pantomime comedy duo, The Merry Mutes, and toured the country. He was a local radio DJ and TV host in the early ’50s when CBS signed him and groomed him for stardom, having him host a morning news program and a cartoon show (!). Dick’s Broadway debut in the short-lived 1959 revue The Girls Against the Boys didn’t garner much attention, but his turn in the following year’s smash hit Bye Bye Birdie earned him a Best Actor in a Musical Tony.
1961 saw him rise to small-screen prominence as the eponymous star of The Dick Van Dyke Show. As TV comedy writer Rob Petrie (a role originally planned for series creator Carl Reiner), Dick played the easygoing straight man to a top supporting cast that included Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Richard Deacon, and Reiner. The smartly-written sitcom ran for five seasons and won Van Dyke three Emmys. Subsequent series included 1972-74’s The New Dick Van Dyke Show; the one-season wonders Van Dyke and Company in 1976 and The Van Dyke Show in 1988; and as crimesolving Dr. Mark Sloan in the popular 1993-2001 drama Diagnosis: Murder.
Van Dyke returned to his stage role of Albert Peterson when he made his movie debut in the 1963 film version of Bye Bye Birdie, co-starring Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret, and Paul Lynde (also reprising his Broadway turn). In 1964 he was the first of Shirley MacLaine’s doomed husbands in the comedy What a Way to Go! Later that year he and Julie Andrews taught audiences how to say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” when he played chimney sweep/one-man band/jack of all trades Bert in the whimseical Disney classic Mary Poppins.
Van Dyke would go on to star in two more comedies for the House of Mouse, 1967’s Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. and 1968’s Never a Dull Moment. 1968 also saw him behind the wheel of the flying car fantasy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Based on a book by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, the song-filled family feature was popular but failed to turn a profit at the box office. Some of his other ’60s films included the romcom The Art of Love (1965), the freewheeling romp Fitzwilly (1967), and Reiner’s pathos-heavy The Comic (1969). The latter starred Dick as a self-destructive silent film funnyman, a character loosely based on Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, and Van Dyke’s idol, Stan Laurel. “Very few people saw that movie,” he once said, “but we were proud of it.”
Dick’s TV and stage work kept him away from films for the next several decades. His only live-action ’70s turns were as a reverend trying to coax his small Iowa town to give up smoking for a national contest in Norman Lear’s satirical Cold Turkey (1971) and as a 1910s priest who is drawn to a younger nun in Stanley Kramer’s final feature, The Runner Stumbles (1979). The 1974 made-for-TV drama The Morning After found Van Dyke as a PR expert trying and failing to hide his alcoholism (a problem the actor himself faced during this time). He later had a brief role as the crooked D.A. in Warren Beatty’s 1990 comic-strip actioner Dick Tracy. Younger moviegoers will remember Dick as one of the three security guards (alongside Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs) out to frame their new replacement (Ben Stiller) for stealing a mystical artifact in the first two Night at the Museum films.
Recently Van Dyke had a cameo in Disney’s 2018 sequel Mary Poppins Returns, and in 2023 his multi-episode role on the NBC soaper Days of Our Lives earned him a Guest Performer Daytime Emmy. Despite several health issues Dick continues to keep busy doing what he does best: entertaining. And how does the beloved actor plan to spend his 100th birthday? According to his wife, “He doesn’t want to do anything. He wants to be in his room watching Jeopardy! reruns with me.”
Do you have a favorite movie or TV moment featuring Dick Van Dyke? Share your recollections in the comments below…and watch out for stray ottomans.