My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business Read online

  Copyright © 2011 by Point Productions, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Archetype,

  an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  Crown Archetype with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Van Dyke, Dick.

  My lucky life in and out of show business: a memoir / Dick Van Dyke.

  1. Van Dyke, Dick. 2. Television actors and actresses—United States—Biography. 3. Comedians—United states—Biography. I. Title.

  PN2287.V335A3 2011

  791.45′028′092—dc22

  [B] 2010043698

  eISBN: 978-0-307-59226-2

  TITLE PAGE PHOTOGRAPH: AP PHOTO/JERRY MOSEY

  JACKET DESIGN BY JENNIFER O’CONNOR

  JACKET PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

  Additional photograph credits.

  v3.1

  To my kids—

  CHRIS, BARRY, STACY, AND CARRIE—

  who taught me all I know about love

  STAN:

  You remember how dumb I used to be?

  OLIVER:

  Yeah?

  STAN:

  Well, I’m better now.

  —Laurel and Hardy (Block-Heads, 1938)

  If I’m known for giving people decent entertainment and raising good kids, that’s all right.

  I’ll have lived a good one.

  —Me

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  FOREWORD BY CARL REINER

  INTRODUCTION

  PART ONE

  1. Step in Time

  2. The Yawn Patrol

  3. Special Services

  4. The Merry Mutes

  5. Live on the Air

  6. A Seven-Year Contract

  7. Laugh Lines

  8. Bye Bye Birdie

  9. Rob and Laura Petrie

  10. Showtime

  11. Canceled

  12. Business as Usual

  13. A Jolly Holiday

  14. Family Values

  15. Seeing Stars

  16. Upsets and Good-byes

  PART TWO

  17. Never a Dull Moment

  18. Some Kind of Nut

  19. The New Dick Van Dyke

  Photo Insert

  20. The Morning After

  PART THREE

  21. Sailing Away

  22. Another Fine Mess

  23. Divorce American Style

  24. Em-va-zema

  25. Strong Medicine

  PART FOUR

  26. The Old Man and the TV

  27. Diagnosis Fun

  28. Curtain Calls

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INSERT PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS

  FOREWORD

  BY CARL REINER

  In the last fifty years, I have oft been asked what I consider to be my most rewarding theatrical experience, and without hesitation and with total honesty, I say, “The Dick Van Dyke Show!”

  Since this is a foreword to Dick Van Dyke’s autobiography, I will not dwell on any of the other talented and brilliant members of that show but on the man whose name inspired its title. After watching Dick deliver scripted lines that made them seem cleverer, more elegant, and funnier than I had imagined them to be, I looked for ways to challenge his ability.

  There is one “incident” that Dick did not write about in this book that I think bears inclusion. It occurred during the rehearsal of “Gesuntheit, Darling,” a second-season episode I’d written during which Rob is afflicted with a sneezing fit. Every time he hugs or kisses or comes near his son, Ritchie, or his wife, Laura, he goes into a paroxysm of assorted sneezes that vary in length and volume and comical sounds. Rob, naturally, concludes that he is allergic to his family. As I watched Dick deliver his variety pack of authentic sneezes, I was in awe of his ability to find that many different ways to sneeze while still delivering his lines. Everyone there on the set—the cast and crew and myself—who watched his awesome symphony of sneezes was doubled over with laughter. It was when he finished his performance that I thought, This man can do anything!, and to prove it to myself and to the assembly, I asked if he was up to a challenge. Without knowing what I was going to ask, Dick, of course, said yes and I challenged him to do the following:

  “Dick, just for fun,” I said, “in this order, can you sneeze, cough, belch, hiccup, yawn, and pass gas all while trying to stifle the giggles?”

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Dick delivered the entire order—and at a rapid-fire pace!

  Darn, as I write this, I wonder if he can still do the above and add the “itchy ear,” “buzzing bee,” and “cinder in his eye” that just popped into my mind.

  I’ll bet Dick can—and with no apparent effort, for there is no end to that man’s kinesthetic abilities. He proved that in 158 episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show, and he continues to do so today.

  Viva Van Dyke!

  INTRODUCTION

  A while ago, but not so long that I can put this story anyplace else and have it make as much sense, my brother, Jerry, had a problem with his kidneys and needed a transplant. While he was on the waiting list, I changed my will to say that he could have mine if I happened to die before he received one. I thought that was pretty considerate, big brotherly, and reflective of the type of person I try to be, and so did he.

  In fact, Jerry called me every single day. What a guy, right? Then, as soon as I answered the phone, he said, “Oh, you’re still alive.”

  Yes—and alive I remain. While I have reached that point in life where, like it or not, I am circling the drain, I am happy to report that I am still with all my wits and faculties, still working, still getting calls, and counting my blessings for all of the above. As such, it seems like a good time to finally jot down some of my life’s more important stories, and some of the lesser ones, too.

  I have endeavored to write the kind of book I think people want from me. It’s also the kind of book that I want from me. It covers my sixty-plus years in show business, including my starring roles in The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Poppins, two projects that have withstood the test of time and will, I am proud to say, likely go on entertaining future generations. I also write about my family, my personal struggles, and a few lessons I may have learned.

  As you will discover in the following pages, I never planned any of it. The only career strategy I had was in the early days when my goal was simply to feed my family and keep a roof over their heads. I went where the jobs were, anywhere the wind blew, as I like to say, and most of the time things worked out.

  I attribute a lot of it to luck—to being the right person in the right place at the right time.

  But a word of warning about this book: If you are looking for dirt, stop reading now. I have had some tough times and battled a few demons, but there is nothing salacious here. I may be a Hollywood anachronism in that way (and possibly in a few other ways). I have tried to write an honest story, with lightness, insight, hope, and some laughs. I have also woven in bits of wisdom, opinion, and lessons learned, like this, my favorite: You can spread jelly on the peanut butter but you can’t spread peanut butter on the jelly.

  Michelle always liked that one. It made her laugh.

  “What does that mean?” she would ask.

  “I don’t know,” I would say. “But it makes a whole lot of sense.”

  Michelle Triola was my beloved companion of thirty-five year
s. I always expected her to be looking over my shoulder if and when I wrote this book, reminding me of stories that I might have forgotten. Sadly, she succumbed to cancer shortly after I started this memoir. But in her battle, as in every other aspect of her life, she reminded me of the qualities that go into living a good, full, and meaningful life. Even though she hasn’t been here with me, I have still employed her in this effort as my muse, asking many times throughout the process, “Honey, what do you think of this one?”

  And it was with her rich, hearty laugh in mind that I decided to start this book with the one true scandal in my life.

  PART ONE

  Honestly, son, we worried about you. We didn’t think you’d amount to anything.

  —My father, Loren Van Dyke

  1

  STEP IN TIME

  It was nighttime, February 1943, and I was standing next to my mother, thinking about the war in Europe. I had a very good relationship with my mother, so there’s no need for any psychoanalysis about why I was thinking of the war. The fact was, we had finished dinner and she was washing the dishes and I was drying them, as was our routine. My father, a traveling salesman, was on the road, and my younger brother, Jerry, had run off to play.

  We lived in Danville, Illinois, which was about as far away from the war as you could get. Danville was a small town in the heartland of America, and it felt very much like the heartland. It was quiet and neighborly, a place where there was a rich side of town and a poor side, but not a bad side. The streets were brick. The homes were built in the early 1900s. Everybody had a backyard; most were small but none had fences.

  People left their doors open and their lights on, even when they went out. Occasionally someone down on their luck would knock on the back door and my mother would give him something to eat. Sometimes she would give him an odd job to do, too.

  I had things on my mind that night. You could tell from the way I looked out the kitchen window as I did my part of the dishes. I stood six feet one inch and weighed 130 pounds, if that. I was a tall drink of water, as my grandmother said.

  “I’m going to be eighteen in March,” I said. “That means I’ll be up for the draft. I really don’t want to go—and I really don’t want to be in the infantry. So I’m thinking that I ought to join now and try to get in the Air Force.”

  My mother let the dish she was washing slide back into the soapy water and dried her hands. She turned to me, a serious look on her face.

  “I have something to tell you,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re already eighteen,” she said.

  My jaw dropped. I was shocked.

  “But how—”

  “You were born a little premature,” she explained. “You didn’t have any fingernails. And there were a few other complications.”

  “Complications?” I said.

  “Don’t worry, you’re fine now,” she said, smiling. “But we just put your birth date forward to what would have been full term.”

  I wanted to know more than she was willing to reveal, so I turned to another source, my Grandmother Van Dyke. My grandparents on both sides lived nearby, but Grandmother Van Dyke was the most straightforward of the bunch. I stopped by her house one day after school and asked what she remembered about the complications that resulted from my premature birth.

  She looked like she wanted to say “bullshit.” She asked who had sold me a bill of goods.

  “My mother,” I replied.

  “You weren’t premature,” she said.

  “I wasn’t?”

  “You were conceived out of wedlock,” she said, and then she went on to explain that my mother had gotten pregnant before she and my father married. Though it was never stated, I was probably the reason they got married. Eventually my mother confirmed the story, adding that after finding out, she and my father went to Missouri, where I was born. Then, following a certain amount of time, they returned to Danville.

  It may not sound like such a big deal today, but back in 1925 it was the stuff of scandal. And eighteen years later, as I uncovered the facts, it was still pretty shocking to discover that I was a “love child.”

  I am still surprised the secret was kept from me for such a long time when others knew the truth. Danville was a town of thirty thousand people, and it felt as if most of them were relatives. I had a giant extended family. My great-grandparents on both sides were still alive, and I had first, second, and third cousins nearby. I could walk out of my house in any direction and hit a relative before I got tired.

  There were good, industrious, upstanding, and attractive people in our family. There were no horse thieves or embezzlers. I was once given a family tree that showed the Van Dyke side was pretty unspectacular. My great-great-grandfather John Van Dyke went out west via the Donner Pass during the gold rush. After failing to find gold, he resettled in Green County, Pennsylvania.

  The same family tree showed that Mother’s side of the family, the McCords, could be traced back to Captain John Smith, who established the first English colony in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Maybe it is true, but I never heard any talk about that when I was growing up. Nor have I fact-checked.

  The part beyond dispute begins when my father, Loren, or L. W. Van Dyke, met my mother, Hazel McCord. She was a stenographer, and he was a minor-league baseball player: handsome, athletic, charming, the life of the party. And his talent did not end there. During the off-season, he played saxophone and clarinet in a jazz band. Although unable to read a note of music, he could play anything he heard.

  He was enjoying the life of a carefree bon vivant until my mother informed him that she was in a family way. All of a sudden the good life as he knew it vanished. He accepted the responsibility, though, marrying my mom and getting a job as a salesman for the Sunshine Cookie Company.

  He hated the work, but he always had a shine on his shoes and a smile on his face. Years later, when I saw Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman, I was depressed for a month. It was my dad’s story.

  He was saved by his sense of humor. Customers enjoyed his company when he dropped by. Known as Cookie, he was a good time wherever he went. Unfortunately for us, he was usually on the road all week and then spent weekends unwinding on the golf course or hunting with friends. At home, he would have a drink at night and smoke unfiltered Fatima cigarettes while talking to my mother.

  He was more reserved around my brother and me, but we knew he loved us. We never questioned it. He was one of those men who did not know how to say the words. A joke was easy. At a party, everyone left talking about what a great guy he was. But a heart-to-heart talk with us boys was not in his repertoire. Years later, after I was married, Jerry and my dad drove to Atlanta to visit us. I asked Jerry what he and Dad had talked about on the drive. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “You know Dad,” he said. “Not much of anything.”

  My mother was the opposite. She was funny like my dad, but much more talkative. If she had a deficiency, it was a tendency toward absentmindedness. She once cooked a ham and later found it in my father’s shirt drawer. I am not kidding. And when I was in my thirties, she confessed that when I was little she and my father would go to the movies and leave me at home by myself in the crib. I would be a mess when they returned.

  “I don’t know how I could’ve done that,” she said.

  “Me neither,” I replied.

  “But we were young,” she said, smiling. “We didn’t mean any harm. We just didn’t know any better.”

  I was five and a half years old when my brother, Jerry, was born. It was not long before my parents moved him from a little bassinet in their room to a crib in my room and made it my job to go upstairs after dinner and gently shake the crib until he went to sleep. Within a year or two, I was given the job of babysitting. It wasn’t a problem during the daytime when my mom ran errands and was gone a short time, but there were longer stretches at night when my parents went out and our old house filled with strange noises and e
erie creaks, and I turned into a wreck.

  Convinced that the place was haunted, I would pull a crate into the middle of the house and sit on it with an ax in my lap, ever vigilant and ready to protect my baby brother—and myself!

  At six years old, I was sent to kindergarten. There was only one kindergarten in town, and it was located in the well-to-do section. The school was quite hoity-toity. Every morning my mother dressed me up and gave me two nickels. I used one for the six-mile trolley ride to Edison Elementary, and in the afternoon I used my other nickel to get back home.

  For first grade, I switched to Franklin Elementary, which was on the other side of town, the side that was struggling even more than we were through the Great Depression. We didn’t have much, but the families in this area did not have anything. All the boys at school wore overalls and work shoes—all of them except for me. I arrived on the first day in a Lord Fauntleroy suit, blue with a Peter Pan collar and a beret.

  Since I was the only one in class with any schooling, the teacher made me the class monitor and assigned me to escort kids to the bathroom and back. It was a rough job. Some of the kids were crying. Others wanted to go home. I had my hands full all morning. Between my outfit and my job as helper, I was teased for being the teacher’s pet.

  At recess, I walked outside and a tough kid in overalls—his name was Al—punched me in the chest while another boy kneeled down behind me. Then Al pushed me backward, and I lost my balance and fell down. I ended up with a bloody nose and a few scratches. They also threw my beret on the roof, and for all I know, it is still there.

  I was a mess when I got home after school.

  “What in God’s name happened to you?” my mother said.

  I was too much of a little man to rat out the other kids. I spared her the details and simply said, “Mom, I need some overalls.”

  As for the Depression, I remember my parents having some heated arguments about unpaid bills, and which bills to pay. They went in and out of debt and periodically got a second mortgage on the furniture. I wasn’t aware of any hardship and never felt the stigma of having to watch every nickel. Everybody was poor.