Dick Van Dyke interview: ‘Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic’
Legendary entertainer Dick Van Dyke was as surprised as anybody when he arrived to record the CBS special “Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic.” For our recent webchat he reveals, “I hadn’t seen anything until I got there, and they had built the old living room from the show. Behind us was the set from “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from “Mary Poppins.”
CBS had assembled an all-star musical tribute for the Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award winner’s to celebrate his 98th birthday last December. Van Dyke and viewers enjoyed big productions featuring songs from “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Mary Poppins, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “Bye Bye Birdie.” Performers included Jason Alexander, Zachary Levi, Skylar Astin, Amanda Kloots, Amber Riley, Rita Ora, Beth Behrs, Tichina Arnold, Jojo Siwa, Weird Al Yankovic and Rufus Wainwright. In person tributes were offered by Rob Reiner, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Roma Downey, Brad Garrett and others.
For our audio conversation (listen to the exclusive interview above), he adds, “I realized at the end of that, I said I never had to work for a living in my life. I just played and they paid me… The thing that touched me was that the whole cast of the show is gone, as were most of my other fellow performers that I worked with. A lot of the people who came and performed did so out of friendship.”
He also discusses a pivotal moment in his life from his Broadway musical “Bye Bye Birdie” involving star Chita Rivera. He says, “We were in Philadelphia with the stage show doing tryouts. And one day they brought this song down for Chita which was “Put on a Happy Face.” And Chita said, ‘Oh, look, Dick doesn’t have anything to do in the first act. Why don’t you let him have it. She handed me that song, which won me a Tony, so God bless her.”
Van Dyke and his wife Arlene (who also joins for our audio interview) are both producers on the special, which will be eligible at the 2024 Emmys for Best Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). That same category was won by Carol Burnett for her 90th birthday special on NBC. A 2024 win would make him the oldest Emmy winner ever, surpassing Norman Lear, who prevailed when he was 98 years, 2 months old. Van Dyke would be 98 years, 10 months. He is also nominated at the Daytime Emmys in a few weeks for his guest role on “Days of Our Lives.”
He says there is certainly an extra space on his mantle for more awards, although his career has included many of them. He is a five-time Emmy winner (four in primetime; one in daytime) and has a Tony and Grammy, was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient and an inductee in the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Listen to the interview below.
