10 Things You Might Not Know About Dick Van Dyke As He Turns 100

Few performers can say that they’ve spent the better part of a century entertaining people. Dick Van Dyke is one of the exceptions. The actor and dancer was a big part of mid-20th century pop culture thanks to 1960s sitcom classic The Dick Van Dyke Show as well as the 1990s crime procedural Diagnosis: Murder. In between, he found time to co-star in some family classics (Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and appear on stage.

With Van Dyke turning 100 on December 13, take a look at some of the more interesting facts from his life and career.

1. Dick Van Dyke didn’t know his own birthday.
2. He served during World War II.
3. Van Dyke’s first showbiz gig was wordless.
4. He got married on a radio show.
5. Van Dyke got advice from comic greats.
6. He’s aware that his Mary Poppins accent was atrocious.
7. Van Dyke claims he was asked about playing James Bond.
8. Van Dyke found a new generation of fans on cable.
9. His name was misspelled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
10. Van Dyke was going to retire from show business in 1972.

Dick Van Dyke didn’t know his own birthday.

Van Dyke was born December 13, 1925, in West Plains, Missouri (though he was raised in Danville, Illinois)—but he recalled in his 2011 memoir My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business that he grew up thinking his birthday fell in March. When he was about to turn 18, his mother revealed that he had actually been born several months earlier and was, in fact, already a legal adult. Van Dyke later learned via his grandmother that he had been conceived out of wedlock, at the time a rather scandalous occurrence. Rather than risk stigmatizing their son, his parents opted to fudge his actual birthday.

He served during World War II.

Van Dyke came of age just in time to serve in the military during World War II. In 1942, he joined the Air Force with designs on becoming a pilot. Instead, his aptitude for performing—he appeared in high school musicals and plays—got him routed to Special Services at Majors Army Airfield in Sherman, Texas. There, Van Dyke was responsible for helping produce plays and sketches and hosted a military radio station.

Van Dyke’s first showbiz gig was wordless.

Following the end of the war, Van Dyke partnered with his boyhood friend, entertainer Phil Erickson. They booked appearances as the Merry Mutes, a mime duo who performed and lip-synced to operas and music.

The act wasn’t always well-received. Once, Van Dyke recalled, a nightclub promoter in Hollywood booked the pair for two weeks but was so disappointed by their first show that he canceled the rest of their bookings and had Van Dyke’s car towed off the premises.

The partnership ended when both men began to put down roots in Atlanta, Georgia, which made a traveling show difficult. Instead, Van Dyke auditioned for CBS at the behest of an old Army friend. That earned him an exclusive network contract, which led to appearances on variety shows.

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He got married on a radio show.

Aspiring to a career in show business can result in lean years, and Van Dyke’s experience was no different. In 1948, he and then-girlfriend Margie Willet decided to get married. Absent any funds for a honeymoon, the two agreed to have the ceremony broadcast on the radio program Bride and Groom in exchange for a vacation.

“We got a honeymoon in Mt. Hood, Oregon, and some free appliances,” Van Dyke said in 2010. “I couldn’t afford to get married otherwise.” (The two would later divorce in 1984; he got married a second time, to make-up artist Arlene Silver, in 2012.)

Van Dyke got advice from comic greats.

Following a Broadway turn in Bye Bye Birdie, Van Dyke was cast in Carl Reiner’s series about a sitcom writer named Rob Petrie. Originally titled Head of the Family, The Dick Van Dyke Show ran from 1961 to 1966 and was widely hailed as one of the smartest sitcoms on the air. While the writing was sharp, audiences were also amused by Van Dyke’s physical comedy. His lanky frame tumbling over the living room ottoman capped every credit sequence.

To perfect his craft, Van Dyke had some impressive mentorship. “I knew Stan Laurel, and I used to call him up and ask him, ‘What do you think of this?’ ” Van Dyke said in 2004. “I always liked to hear what he thought. I called Buster Keaton, too. They were both retired here in LA, so I got to know them. Buster said, ‘You should have been in silents. You were born 20 years too late.’ ”

He’s aware that his Mary Poppins accent was atrocious.

A spoonful of sugar may help the medicine go down, but it’s not going to manage one’s pain in hearing Van Dyke’s objectively bad cockney accent as chimney sweep Bert in 1964’s Mary Poppins. (One contemporaneous review politely referred to it as “overdone,” while another observed it “sahnds a bit orf.”)

While it obviously didn’t sink the movie, which remains beloved, it does stand out as one of the actor’s missteps. British movie magazine Empire voted it the second-worst onscreen accent of all time. (First place went to Sean Connery for his Irish dialect in 1987’s The Untouchables.)

“I still get kidded about it,” Van Dyke told Entertainment Weekly in 2024. “But it didn't seem to harm anybody’s enjoyment of the movie. But I do get kidded about it. The people who don’t kid me are the British. They never mentioned it—and they’re the ones who should be making fun of me and don’t.”

Van Dyke claims he was asked about playing James Bond.

While Van Dyke is primarily known for his comedic roles and family-friendly films, he’s not unfamiliar with dramatic acting. He tackled his first major serious part in 1974, playing a corporate executive with an alcohol problem in the made-for-TV film The Morning After; an episode of Columbo that same year cast him as a murderer. Still, it’s hard to picture him as the violent superspy James Bond. In 2023, Van Dyke told CBS News he was approached about the role in the late 1960s by Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, whom he recently had worked for in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (That 1968 film was based on a book written by Bond creator Ian Fleming.)

“Yeah, I could have been James Bond,” Van Dyke said. “When Sean Connery left, the producer said, ‘Would you like to be the next Bond?’ I said, ‘Have you heard my British accent?’ Click! That’s a true story!”

At the time, the role was up for grabs: Connery had opted out of any more sequels following 1967’s You Only Live Twice. He returned in 1971 after Australian actor George Lazenby did a one-off, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Van Dyke found a new generation of fans on cable.

Van Dyke remained a familiar face on television in the 1990s thanks to Diagnosis: Murder, but that series skewed to an older audience. Younger viewers got introduced to The Dick Van Dyke Show thank to reruns on Nick at Nite, the primetime programming block on Nickelodeon that ran classic sitcoms. The channel even hired Van Dyke to be an on-air “chairman” of the network. “The big change is that now children recognize me,” Van Dyke told The New York Times in 1992. “Little kids will come up on the street and say, ‘Hi, Mr. Chairman!’ Some of their parents weren’t even alive when the show started.”

His name was misspelled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Van Dyke was the recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993, but there was a hiccup in the proofreading portion. The star featured his name without a space: Dick Vandyke. The actor scribbled in a hyphen as a temporary fix before the star was corrected.

Van Dyke was going to retire from show business in 1972.

After The Dick Van Dyke Show ended in 1966, Van Dyke expressed a desire to retire in six years’ time to focus on work with spiritually-based youth groups. But Carl Reiner, creator of the sitcom, was dubious. “He’ll never retire,” Reiner said.

Technically, Van Dyke did leave Hollywood. But by 1971, he was back on television, starring in the sitcom The New Dick Van Dyke Show, also created by Reiner. The catch? Van Dyke convinced CBS to build a soundstage five minutes from his home in Arizona. The series ran for three seasons.