I am prompt with this one! I just noticed that “Dick Van
Dyke” was trending, and I consider it my sworn duty to swoop in and get the
skinny on all trending Dicks. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. Dick
Van Dyke is trending because it was announced that he will receive a Screen
Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in January 2013. The man has been
acting and entertaining for over sixty years. Way to go, Dick!
Richard Wayne Van Dyke was born December 13, 1925 in Missouri,
but he grew up in Illinois (go Midwest!). He served as a radio announcer and
entertainer of the troops during World War II, and he married his first wife
(and mother of his four children) on the radio show Bride and Groom in 1948. I must admit, that sounds like a radio
precursor to reality TV.
After radio, Dick was part of a touring comedy duo until
he started appearing in Broadway musicals. His first role was in The Girls Against the Boys (never heard
of it, but maybe you have) and he later played the male lead in Bye Bye Birdie. Dick also did
television; his most famous work was The
Dick Van Dyke Show with Mary Tyler Moore, which ran from 1961 to 1966. Dick
did other shows after that (including The
New Dick Van Dyke Show) but none were as successful. Fun facts: he voiced
his animated counterpart in “Scooby-Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke” (speaking of
Scooby-Doo: Rest in Peace, Phyllis Diller); played a murderer in the first
episode of Matlock; and was a
boyfriend of Bea Arthur’s character on The
Golden Girls. Good stuff, right there.
Dick also did film; he’s probably most famous for
portraying the chimney sweep Bert with the horrendous accent in Mary Poppins. His accent, according to a
2003 poll by Empire Magazine, is the
second-worst in film history. That’s pretty bad, but, when you’re a kid, you
don’t really notice. It’s not as though I had ever heard a turn-of-the-century
London East Ender talk before. But Dick
seems to take it all in stride, noting with a laugh, that British people “tease
me to death” about the accent (see LA
Times article). Yeah, I’d be laughing too – all the way to the bank – if I
were as rich as him. Dick also appeared in Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang (without a horrible accent). He also played a villain in Dick Tracy and Night at the Museum. He was in other movies, too, but those weren’t
very good.
Dick has won five Emmys, a Tony, and a Grammy, which is
quite a haul. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he’s about to
get a SAG Award. Congratulations, Dick!
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