On December 13, 1925, one of the world’s greatest comic actors was born. Dick Van Dyke‘s Missouri family was of modest means, but the young man decided early to carve out a career on show business as a comedian. During his senior year, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force, where he met a colleague who worked at CBS, who recommended him to the network, which was so pleased with the young comic that they signed him to a seven-year contract.
But Van Dyke’s first love was performing on stage, and he got his big break as songwriter Albert Peterson in the new musical “Bye Bye Birdie,” for which he won the Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Shortly thereafter, CBS put into development with Carl Reiner what was to become “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which premiered in 1961 and went on to become one of the landmarks of American situation comedy history. During its run, Van Dyke went on to star in the film version of “Bye Bye Birdie,” which became an enormous hit and brought him to the attention of Walt Disney, who personally cast him as Bert, the chimney sweep, in his musical version of “Mary Poppins.”
The film was a phenomenon, bringing Van Dyke his first Golden Globe nomination and leading to a movie career in which he starred in films made on budgets both big (“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”) and small (“The Runner Stumbles”). At the same time, he returned to television with a new sitcom, appropriately titled “The New Dick Van Dyke Show,” and while it was not as successful as the original, it did earn Van Dyke his second Golden Globe nomination. Television success did return in the 1990s with “Diagnosis: Murder,” which was, of all things, a mystery medical crime drama, whose eight-season run became Van Dyke’s longest-running television success.
In addition to the Tony Award, Van Dyke won a 1965 Grammy Award for the children’s album of “Mary Poppins.” For his work in television, he has been nominated for 12 Emmy Awards, winning six, including three for the original “Dick Van Dyke Show.” He has been on the edge of an EGOT for almost 50 years, with only the elusive Oscar keeping him from that rare honor. But with Dick Van Dyke, never say never. In 2024 alone, he won his sixth Emmy for a “Days of Our Lives” guest role and starred (and sang!) in the Coldplay music video “All My Love,” so Hollywood may still come calling.
Tour our happy 99th birthday photo gallery above which ranks his 10 best performances, both on film and television.
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