Dick Van Dyke, our visitor on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is a very legendary display actor. An Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner who was a 1995 inductee into the Tv Corridor of Fame, a 2012 recipient of the SAG life achievement award and a 2021 honoree on the Kennedy Middle Honors, he has been described by the New York Occasions as a “one-man bundle of skills,” by the Los Angeles Occasions as “among the many most likable stars ever,” and by Carl Reiner because the “most gifted human being ever placed on earth.”
Van Dyke, after all, was the namesake and star of probably the most acclaimed, influential and beloved TV sequence of all time, The Dick Van Dyke Present, which ran on CBS from 1961 to 1966, and likewise starred in quite a few basic household movies, most notably 1964’s Mary Poppins, but additionally 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie, 1968’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the 2006 and 2014 installments of The Evening on the Museum sequence and 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns.
Final December, to commemorate Van Dyke’s 98th birthday, CBS — the identical community on which he started his TV profession in 1955 — aired Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic, a spread particular that includes spoken, sung and danced tributes to him from varied celebrities as he appeared on beaming alongside his spouse, Arlene Silver, who was an govt producer of this system.
Over the course of our dialog at Van Dyke’s memorabilia and Emmys-filled residence in Malibu, the remarkably spry nonagenarian mirrored on his unlikely path from small-town Missouri to America’s dwelling rooms; how, throughout the run of The Dick Van Dyke Present, he was additionally showing in motion pictures and combating alcoholism; the nice, dangerous and ugly elements of getting older; what he thinks about American TV and politics right this moment; and why Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic was so significant to him.