Dick Van Dyke Turns 100 and Says He Still Tries to Dance

Dick Van Dyke, the actor, singer and dancer who became one of television’s best-known comedians, turned 100 on Saturday, CBS News and NBC News reported. “The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” he told ABC News, according to NBC News. “A hundred years is not enough. You want to live more, which I plan to.”

Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, in 1925 and grew up in Danville, Illinois, where he was “the class clown” who admired and imitated silent film comedians. NBC reported that he said he played the baby Jesus in a Christmas pageant.

“The Dick Van Dyke Show” ran five years on CBS, starting in 1961. In 1964 he played Bert in Disney’s “Mary Poppins,” and he also appeared in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” According to NBC, he won a Tony Award for the Broadway show “Bye Bye Birdie” and in his 70s played a physician-sleuth on “Diagnosis: Murder.” He has won four Primetime Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995, CBS reported. CBS reported that he became the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for “Days of Our Lives.” He is, CBS noted, one Oscar short of the EGOT. “I hope it’s not posthumous,” he joked.

Van Dyke has been open about his past. In the 1970s he found sobriety after battling alcoholism and spoke about it publicly at a time when that was uncommon, NBC said. “If I had known I was gonna live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself!” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2023. He credits his wife, Arlene Silver, a 54-year-old makeup artist and producer, with keeping him healthy; she makes sure he goes to the gym three days a week, he told CBS.

Reaching a century has changed how he thinks about the older characters he used to play. “I played old men a lot, and I always played them as angry and cantankerous,” he said. “It’s not really that way. I don’t know any other 100-year-olds, but I can speak for myself.” NBC noted that he shared advice in his book “100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life.”

Fans were invited to join the celebration. Theaters across the country this weekend are showing a new documentary, “Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration,” CBS reported. CBS reported that he gets more fan mail now. Asked what is hardest about being 100, he said, “I miss movement,” and added, “I still try to dance.”