Richard Wayne Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, entertainer, and comedian. His career has spanned over seven decades in film, television, and stage. Van Dyke is the recipient of a Golden Globe, Tony, Grammy, a Daytime Emmy, and four Primetime Emmys. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012. He was honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2021, and was recognized as a Disney Legend.
Van Dyke Facts
- Born : Richard Wayne Van Dyke December 13, 1925 (age 98), West Plains, Missouri, US.
- Occupation : Actor, Comedian, Singer, Dancer, Writer
- Years Active : 1947-Present
- Partner : Michelle Triola Marvin
- Children : 4, including Barry
- Relatives : Jerry Van Dyke (brother), Kelly Jean Van Dyke (niece), Shane Van Dyke (grandson)
- Service : United States Army Air Force
- Rank : Staff Sergeant
- Awards : Good Conduct Medal
Van Dyke Early life and education
Richard Wayne Van Dyke was born on December 13, 1925, in West Plains, Missouri to Hazel Victoria (née McCord; 1896–1992), a stenographer, and Loren Wayne “Cookie” Van Dyke (1898–1976), a salesman.He grew up in Danville, Illinois. He is the older brother of actor Jerry Van Dyke (1931–2018), who appeared as his brother in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Van Dyke is a Dutch surname, although he also has English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. His family line traces back to Van Dyke Mayflower passenger John Alden.
Van Dyke graduated from Danville High School in 1944, where he participated in the a cappella choir and dramatic club.[11] His involvement in the drama program convinced him to become a professional entertainer, although he also considered a career in the ministry. Van Dyke left high school during his senior year to join the United States Army Air Forces for pilot training during World War II. Denied enlistment several times for being underweight, he was eventually accepted for service as a radio announcer before transferring to the Special Services and entertaining troops in the continental United States. He was discharged in 1946.Van Dyke received his high school diploma in 2004.
Van Dyke Career
Van Dyke During the late 1940s, Van Dyke was a radio DJ on WDAN in Danville, Illinois.In 1947, Van Dyke was persuaded by pantomime performer Phil Ericksonto form a comedy duo called “Eric and Van—the Merry Mutes.” The team toured the West Coast nightclub circuit, performing a mime act and lip synching to 78 rpm records. They moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1950s and performed a local television show featuring original skits and music called “The Merry Mutes”.
Van Dyke’s start in television was with WDSU-TV New Orleans Channel 6 (NBC), first as a single comedian and later as emcee of a comedy program. Van Dyke’s first network TV Van Dyke appearance was with Dennis James on James’ Chance of a Lifetime in 1954. He later appeared in two episodes of The Phil Silvers Show during its 1957–58 season. He also appeared early in his career on ABC’s The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom and NBC’s The Polly Bergen Show. During this time a friend from the Army was working as an executive for CBS television and recommended Van Dyke to that network. Out of this came a seven-year contract with the network. During an interview on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! program, Van Dyke said he was the anchorman for the CBS Morning Show during this period with Walter Cronkite as his newsman.
Van Dyke In November 1959, Van Dyke made his Broadway debut in The Girls Against the Boys which ran at the Alvin Theatre. The production was a revue in two acts and featured performances from Van Dyke, Shelley Berman, Bert Lahr, Nancy Walker among many others. The production ran on Broadway for sixteen performances from November 2, 1959, to November 14, 1959
Van Dyke The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966)
Van Dyke From 1961 to 1966, Van Dyke starred in the CBS sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, in which he portrayed a comedy writer named Rob Petrie. Carl Reiner conceived the program and cast himself as the lead in the pilot, but CBS insisted on recasting, and Reiner chose Van Dyke to replace him in the role.Complementing Van Dyke was a veteran cast of comic actors including Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Jerry Paris, Ann Morgan Guilbert, Richard Deacon, and Carl Reiner (as Alan Brady), as well as 24-year-old Mary Tyler Moore, who played Rob’s wife Laura Petrie. Van Dyke won three Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and the series received Van Dyke four Emmy Awards as Outstanding Comedy Series.
Van Dyke The Dick Van Dyke Show received positive reviews from its start, with The Hollywood Reporter praising Van Dyke’s comedic performance writing, “Sure to catch on as a Van Dyke new personality is Dick Van Dyke who, though he can play it straight when need be, proves a master of the double take, juicing up to solid laughs what would possibly be just amusing lines with his physical reactions. Yet, he doesn’t over-mug. In this one, his “drunk husband” bit was a masterpiece of timing and ingenuity.”Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the series following its Blu-ray boxset release in 2012 writing, “The Dick Van Dyke Show certainly wasn’t the first sitcom featuring a lead character who presided over a TV-show-within-the-TV-show — Jack Benny’s The Jack Benny Program, among others, had beaten Van Dyke to that. But this was the first sitcom to meld the workplace sitcom with the domestic sitcom so seamlessly. The episodes themselves move with the same smoothness and grace that Van Dyke and Moore did, whether the Petries were clowning, dancing, or romancing”
Van Dyke Mary Poppins (1964)
Van Dyke That same year, Van Dyke was cast in two roles: as Bert, a man who goes through multiple odd jobs, ultimately and memorably becoming a chimney sweep; and as bank chairman Mr. Dawes Senior, in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964). For his scenes as the chairman, he was heavily costumed to look much older and was credited in that role as “Navckid Keyd” (at the end of the credits, the letters unscramble into “Dick Van Dyke,” which was repeated in Mary Poppins Returns). Van Dyke’s attempt at a cockney accent has been lambasted as one of the worst accents in film history, cited by actors since as an example of how not to sound. In a 2003 poll by Empire magazine of the worst-ever accents in film, he came in second (to Sean Connery in The Untouchables, despite Connery winning an Academy Award for that performance).According to Van Dyke, his accent coach—veteran actor J. Pat O’Malley—was Irish, who “didn’t do an accent any better than I did”, and that no one alerted him to how bad it was during the production. Still, Mary Poppins was successful on release and its appeal has endured. “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, one of the songs that Van Dyke performed in Mary Poppins, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the Sherman Brothers, the film’s songwriting duo.
Van Dyke received a Grammy Award in 1964, along with Julie Andrews, for his performance on the soundtrack to Mary Poppins. Many of the comedy films Van Dyke starred in throughout the 1960s were relatively unsuccessful at the box office, including What a Way to Go! with Shirley MacLaine, Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., Fitzwilly, The Art of Love with James Garner and Elke Sommer, Some Kind of a Nut, Never a Dull Moment with Edward G. Robinson, and Divorce American Style with Debbie Reynolds and Jean Simmons. But he also starred as Caractacus Potts (with his native accent, at his own insistence, despite the English setting) in the successful musical version of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), which co-starred Sally Ann Howes and featured the same songwriters (The Sherman Brothers) and choreographers (Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood) as Mary Poppins.
Van Dyke 2002–present
Van Dyke continued to find television work after Diagnosis: Murder ended, including a dramatically and critically successful performance of The Gin Game, produced for television in 2003 that reunited him with Mary Tyler Moore. In 2003, he portrayed a doctor on Scrubs. A 2004 special of The Dick Van Dyke Show titled The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited was heavily promoted as the first new episode of the classic series to be shown in 38 years. Van Dyke and his surviving cast members recreated their roles; although nominated for a Primetime Emmy,the program was roundly panned by critics. In 2006 he guest-starred as college professor Dr. Jonathan Maxwell for a series of Murder 101 mystery films on the Hallmark Channel. Van Dyke returned to motion pictures in 2006 with Curious George as Mr. Bloomsberry and as villain Cecil Fredericks in the Ben Stiller film Van Dyke Night at the Museum. He reprised the role in a cameo for the sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), but it was cut from the film. It can be found in the special features on the DVD release. He also played the character again in the third film, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014).
Van Dyke In 2010, Van Dyke appeared on a children’s album titled Rhythm Train, with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and singer Leslie Bixler. Van Dyke raps on one of the album’s tracks. In 2017, Van Dyke released his first solo album since 1963’s Songs I Like. The album, Step (Back) In Time, was produced by Bill Bixler (who also played sax), with arrangements by Dave Enos (who also played bass) and features noted musicians John Ferraro (drums), Tony Guerrero (trumpet & vocal duet), Mark LeBrun (piano), Charley Pollard (trombone) and Leslie Bixler (vocals). Step (Back) In Time was released by BixMix Records and showcases Van Dyke in a jazz and big band setting on classic songs from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Van Dyke recorded a duet single for Christmas 2017 with actress Jane Lynch. The song, “We’re Going Caroling,” was written and produced by Tony Guerrero for Lynch’s KitschTone Records label as a digital-only release.
In 2018, Van Dyke portrayed Mr. Dawes Jr. in Mary Poppins Returns. He had previously portrayed both Bert and Mr. Dawes Sr. (Mr. Dawes, Jr.’s late father), in the original filmFor the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series, WandaVision, Van Dyke was consulted by the producers on how to emulate The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Van Dyke In 2023, Van Dyke was a contestant on the season nine premiere of The Masked Singer as “Gnome” and was the first to be eliminated. The episode had been promoted as “the most legendary, decorated and beloved unmasking in history”. After Van Dyke revealed his identity, he received a lengthy standing ovation from the audience and judges. Before departing the stage, Van Dyke sang a portion of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins as an encore, in which he starred. At age 97, Van Dyke became the oldest person ever to compete on the series. s for several episodes. On December 21, 2023, he was honored with a CBS special Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic celebrating his 98th birthday.
Van Dyke Personal life
Van Dyke On February 12, 1948, while appearing at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, he and the former Margerie Willett were married on the radio show Bride and Groom.They had four children: Christian, Barry, Stacy and Carrie Beth. They divorced in 1984 after a long separation. In 1976, Van Dyke began his relationship with longtime companion Michelle Triola Marvin. They lived together for more than 30 years, until her death in 2009. On February 29, 2012, at the age of 86, Van Dyke married 40-year-old make-up artist Arlene Silver. They had met six years earlier at the SAG awards.
Van Dyke incorporated his children and grandchildren into his TV endeavors. Son Barry Van Dyke, grandsons Shane Van Dyke and Carey Van Dyke along with other Van Dyke grandchildren and relatives appeared in various episodes of the long-running series Diagnosis: Murder. Although Stacy Van Dyke was not well known in show business, she made an appearance in the Diagnosis: Murder Christmas episode “Murder in the Family” (season 4) as Carol Sloan Hilton, the estranged daughter of Dr. Mark Sloan. All of Van Dyke’s children are married, and he has seven grandchildren. His son Chris was district attorney for Marion County, Oregon, in the 1980s. In 1987, Van Dyke’s granddaughter Jessica Van Dyke died from Reye syndrome, which led him to do a series of commercials to raise public awareness of the danger of aspirin to children.
Throughout his acting career he continued to teach Sunday school in the Presbyterian Church where he was an elder, and he continued to read such theologians as Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
On August 19, 2013, it was reported that the 87-year-old Van Dyke was rescued from his Jaguar by a passerby after the car had caught fire on the US 101 freeway in Calabasas, Los Angeles County. He was not injured in the fire, although the car burned down to its frame.
Van Dyke endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In July 2016, while campaigning for Sanders, Van Dyke said of Donald Trump, “I haven’t been this scared since the Cuban Missile Crisis. I think the human race is hanging in a delicate balance right now, and I’m just so afraid he will put us in a war. He scares me.” Van Dyke again endorsed and campaigned for Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.