Actor and comedic icon Dick Van Dyke is 100 years young today.
Throughout his remarkable career, which has lasted for almost eight decades, the well-known entertainer sang and danced his way into America’s hearts. A new documentary on his life, “Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration,” is being screened in theaters nationwide this weekend as part of the celebration.
A generation was defined in part by Van Dyke’s work. With the five-year CBS series of the same name, “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” he rose to prominence as one of the biggest actors of his time.
Van Dyke was reported to have stated early in his career that he wanted to create movies that his kids could watch. And when Walt Disney cast him beside the unmatched Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins”—complete with a terrible Cockney accent—he realized his ambition.. He also appeared in the equally kid-friendly “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
“Yeah, I could have been James Bond. 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!” Van Dyke told CBS Sunday Morning in 2023.
During his career, Van Dyke won four Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award and a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995.
Just last year, he became the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for a guest role on the soap “Days of Our Lives.”
“I’ll be darned. I think I’m the last of my generation. I’m 98. I have — almost — all my marbles. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast,” he told Entertainment Tonight before his win.