15 Facts About Dick Van Dyke's Life and Career to Honor His 100th Birthday
The documentary Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration drops on his 100th birthday on December 13, 2025. That’s right, Taylor Swift isn’t the only celebrity with a December 13th birthday! Hmm, we wonder if Mr. Van Dyke put the number 13 in everything he did as well.
We’d like to start by thanking the comedic icon for a long, full career of providing several generations with laughter. If he made a baby laugh this year, he could’ve also made that Gen Beta baby’s great-great-great-grandfather laugh when he was a kid back in the 1920s! That’s a lot of laughs in that family tree there, we tells ya. So to commemorate his 100th birthday, here are 15 lesser-known facts about the legend.
His humble beginnings
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Before we get into it, he was born “Richard Wayne Van Dyke” in West Plains, Missouri. His mother was Hazel Van Dyke, and his father, Loren “Cookie” Van Dyke, was a traveling salesman for the Sunshine Biscuit Company.
He married his childhood sweetheart on a live radio show
In 1948, on the live radio show, Bride and Groom, he and then-girlfriend Margie Willet decided to get married. Without money for a honeymoon, they agreed to have the wedding on the show in exchange for a vacation.
He’s so close to an EGOT
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He’s been nominated for nine Emmy Awards, and won four. He was nominated for one Grammy Award and won it, and was nominated for one Tony Award and won that too. If he lands a solid role at 100 years old, he could nab an Oscar!
He learned about his real birth date as an adult
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He grew up thinking his birthday fell in March, but before he turned 18, his mother revealed that he had actually been born on December 13th, and had already turned 18. His grandmother told him that he was conceived out of wedlock (a scandalous occurrence back then), so his parents fudged his actual birth date.
He served in WW2
In 1942, he joined the Air Force with plans of becoming a pilot, but instead, his comedic abilities got him routed to Special Services at Majors Army Airfield in Sherman, Texas. There, he produced plays and sketches, and hosted a military radio station.
He was approved by the greats
CBS
On The Dick Van Dyke Show, audiences loved his physical comedy. To hone this craft, he said, “I knew Stan Laurel, and I used to call him up and ask him, ‘What do you think of this?’ I always liked to hear what he thought. I called Buster Keaton, too. They were both retired here in LA, so I got to know them. Buster said, ‘You should have been in the silents. You were born 20 years too late.’ ”
He still takes some ribbing over his terrible cockney accent
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His cockney accent in Mary Poppins was bad. He said, “I still get kidded about it. But it didn't seem to harm anybody’s enjoyment of the movie. But I do get kidded about it. The people who don’t kid me are the British. They never mentioned it—and they’re the ones who should be making fun of me and don’t.”
He was asked to play James Bond
In 2023, he told CBS News he was approached by producer Cubby Broccoli to play Bond. He said, “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!”
They misspelled his name on his ‘Walk of Fame’ star
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He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993, but the star featured his name without a space: Dick Vandyke. He scribbled in a hyphen as a temporary fix before the star was corrected.
He wasn’t a good fit on ‘The Carol Burnett Show’
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He replaced Harvey Korman in the 10th season of The Carol Burnett Show, but audiences felt he lacked chemistry with the rest of the cast and ratings dipped. He left halfway through the season, but he and Burnett remained friends.
He didn’t get his high school diploma until he was about 80 years old
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He left high school early to join the military and never got his diploma, but the school was very supportive of his entertainment career. When he dropped out, they actually predicted his success by writing in the newspaper, “Danville High School wishes you the best of luck, Dick Van Dyke, and hopes your post-war career will see you right at the top of the entertainment world.” They gave him his diploma in 2004.
He was 36 when he starred in his first movie
Columbia Pictures
He'd already had success starring in the Broadway run of Bye Bye Birdie, and was later cast in the 1963 film when he was in his mid-30s. He had been on TV by this time, but this was his first big movie role.
He has a self-help book on aging
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In his book, “Keep Moving and Other Tips and Truths About Aging,” he shared his secrets about life in his 90s. He wrote, “If I am out shopping and hear music playing in a store, I start to dance. If I want to sing, I sing. I read books and get excited about new ideas. I enjoy myself. I don’t think about the way I am supposed to act at my age—or at any age.”
He was over 6 feet tall at age 11
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In his book Those Funny Kids: A Treasury of Classroom Laughter, he wrote that he had grown to 6'1" by age 11.
He was a relative unknown when he was cast in 'The Dick Van Dyke Show’
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He had won a Tony for the Broadway hit Bye Bye Birdie, but had to take a week off from the show to film the TV show’s premiere. That worked out for him.
