I turned on the TV today and Dick Van Dyke was singing and dancing.
… just as he’s always been.
That’s because the channel was turned to Turner Classic Movies and my favorite childhood movie, Mary Poppins, was on. A great film a bunch of humbugs gave him some blowback about for his exaggerated Cockney accent. To which I say…
Exaggerated?
He played a gravity-defying chimney sweep who had to jump into a chalk painting, dance with a group of animated penguin waiters, and make it look real. Which he did. This wasn’t Strindberg, for god’s sake!!!
But the seemingly timeless Mr. Van Dyke (Note: Ahhh, let’s call him Dick, cause Mr. Van Dyke is just too formal and referring to him as DVD sounds just too weird) would likely tell me to not even think about that. When asked this week about the secret to his longevity, he emphasized his #1 is to not hold on to anger.
Is it too late for me to start?
Oh, and also to spend each day singing and dancing, which he still does. In addition to working out three days a week, which he also still does.
Well, at least I do that.
Usually.
Not to be Hallmark card-y about all this, but it’s hard not to about someone who made you feel great when you were a kid lives to be 100 years old.
Still, it wasn’t only Mary Poppins.
I remember Dick recreating his Tony Award-winning performance in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie, as a child of 10 or 11, watching it on TV. He was so deft in the moment he stood up to his loud-mouthed, domineering mother, whose manner bore somewhat of a resemblance to my own.
Ahem.
I can also remember in that film him singing an eternal tune of optimism, Put On A Happy Face, instantly making a brooding pe-teen like me smile.
And it’s still one of my favorite songs from a musical to this day.
This is to say nothing of so many classic moments from his hit series, The Dick Van Dyke Show. I used to sneak out of my bedroom and secretly watch it standing behind my parents’ bedroom door, entranced by the show biz aspect of a clumsy, affable guy who was a TV writer and hung out with a group of snide, funny show biz friends.
To which I say… be careful what you wish for, kids.
But it wasn’t only that.
I kept up with Dick through the years.
One afternoon in the early seventies I was out in L.A. for the summer visiting my Dad and I wandered into a “head” shop in the Valley and saw a heavily bearded Dick, wearing a poncho, buying some record albums and rolling paper, looking like a somewhat death-warmed over vagrant, albeit a kind-seeming one.
It couldn’t be him but I was sure it was HIM, I told myself. And then, several years later in 1974, he played an alcoholic in an acclaimed TV movie, The Morning After, and suddenly it all made sense. Because he spoke to anyone who would listen about the perils of addiction and the downward spiral his life had taken before he got sober.
I remember when his short-lived TV shows, Van Dyke and Company, won an unexpected Emmy as best comedy-variety series in the late 1970s. And admired he came back to TV in the early nineties in order to work with his adult son, Barry Van Dyke, and other family members, on Diagnosis Murder, an hour-long show about a doctor who solves murders with his police detective offspring.
Even if it wasn’t for me.
Because he had done other interesting work and his heart was in the right place.
Among the former was a little seen movie directed by Stanley Kramer, The Runner Stumbles. In it, he plays a rural priest opposite a young nun, played by Kathleen Quinlan, who moves into his rectory to run the church school. The two become the victim of small town gossip, which turns out to be partly true because they are actually in love.
I recall marveling at his ability to disappear his persona and how scathing and unrelenting the criticism was to both him and his director.
It sticks in my mind because I was a critic for Variety at the time and had to review the movie AND interview the acclaimed director of such film classics of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and Judgement at Nuremberg, who couldn’t have been nicer or more forthcoming about that film and his entire career.
Was I swayed by that or by the fact that I had to publicly pass judgment in print on Dick in a dramatic role?
I don’t think.
But as a more seasoned colleague assured me at the time, there were only two things that qualified any critic to pass judgement on a film.
An opinion and a place to print it.
At this point in my life, having written screenplays and movies of my own, and as a writing teacher, I certainly realize the grade or opinion we give to anything doesn’t much matter in the long run.
I suspect Dick was aware of that years ago, if it ever bothered him in the first place. That’s why he was able to keep working for so long and give those who appreciated his talents over the years so much joy.
My final peak moment with him came in 2017 in Santa Monica when a good friend took me to see Chita Rivera’s live solo show, Chita: A Legendary Celebration, at the Broad Theatre. As she sang and danced her way through career highlights and reminiscences she referred back to the days when she played the female lead opposite him on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and her admitted favorite leading man – Dick Van Dyke.
There was instant applause because, well, that’s the kind of reaction Dick gets, especially from people from my generation. But that was nothing compared to the tumultuous applause to the question she then asked us – maybe we can get him to come up here?
At which point, 90 something Dick stood up and strode down the aisle to join her onstage.
It wasn’t a really big theatre and the screams didn’t stop until finally they had to quiet everyone down.
Then they chatted about life and working on the show.
And then he began singing that sweet love song he sang to her character Rose at the end of the show, Everything is Rosie.
They sang and sort of danced and I remember a combination of being entranced and periodically whispering to my friend, I’m dying.
Yeah, it was yet another moment.
Happy 100th Dick.
And…thanks 😎
Coldplay – “All My Love” (featuring Dick Van Dyke)
notes from a chair 