{alltv} Dick Van Dyke dances through life

MALIBU, Calif. — Dick Van Dyke fibs in his new memoir, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.

In the introduction to the book, out Tuesday (Crown Archetype, $25), the 85-year-old actor, singer and dancer says he is "circling the drain." That's hardly the case for a man as busy as he is.

As he sits for a photo session in his small, lush backyard, Van Dyke is late for rehearsal in a local theater of The Sunshine Boys, in which he stars with his younger brother, Jerry. He has a weekend gig with Mitzi Gaynor and his singing group, The Vantastix, and he has to prepare for a book tour.

And during the shoot, a neighbor pops in to ask if he would stop by when he's done to say hello to the touring cast of Fiddler on the Roof.

Of course he will.

"I'm always announcing my retirement," he says. "I'm still not retired."

If he retired tomorrow, he'd leave behind a fabled career that has included film (Mary Poppins), stage (Bye Bye Birdie, a role he reprised on film) and the small-screen pièce de résistance, seminal '60s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show.

The great-grandfather discusses that career matter-of-factly, crediting fate more than design. In the beginning, in fact, he just wanted to be an announcer. "Everything else was pure luck," he says, sitting in a living room accented by a Tony, a Grammy and four Emmys. "That's why I call (the book) Lucky, because it was, being in the right place at the right time."

Then again, his other title suggestion —Everybody Else Has Got a Book— was rejected. "They have no sense of humor," he says.

A memorable career

But Van Dyke does, as he discusses his life, punctuating lines with a deep, resonant laugh. "There are so many high points," he says. The biggest? It depends on the way you word the question.

Professionally, he had the most fun doing The DickVan DykeShow, a five-season classic that wears well to this day. Van Dyke — besides dodging an ottoman that always threatened to trip him up — won three Emmys as Rob Petrie, a TV comedy writer and family man. (It was supposed to be pronounced "pee-tree," but Van Dyke said "pet-tree" in the pilot, and it stuck.)

"It was just a party for five years. There was so much creativity. I never had so much fun," says Van Dyke, who admits to having had a crush on co-star Mary Tyler Moore, in her breakthrough role. "We'd sit at the table and (creator Carl Reiner) would say, 'Anything funny happen to anybody?' When he could base it on a true story, he did."

Inquire about Poppins, and Van Dyke, who played a chimney sweep and an old banker opposite Julie Andrews, says: "That's the best thing I ever did. It was hard, hard work, but I loved doing it." And, of course, Birdie— a musical drawn from the uproar over Elvis Presley's Army induction — opened the door to everything that followed. "It changed my whole life."

Then there's the personal level. He's proud of his four grown children — Chris, Barry, Stacy and Carrie Beth. "They all turned out great, I'm happy to say. Not a horse thief in the bunch."

And, he's comfortable in his social life with his girlfriend, Arlene Silver, 39.

"I would say I'm happier right now than I've ever been. Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.' "

Funny family

Van Dyke grew up with no showbiz connections in Danville, Ill., a town of little more than 30,000 that produced an abundance of talent during his era, including singer/pianist Bobby Short and actors Donald O'Connor and Gene Hackman.

Jerry Van Dyke, who wanted to be a stand-up comic from childhood, says any comic training the boys picked up came from their father, Loren, whom he calls "the funniest man who ever lived. ... If he wasn't telling jokes and telling stories, he wasn't talking."

Jerry says Dick, who acted in high school plays, was the least funny in the family. "Dick got the good looks; I got the comedy. He wanted to be Cary Grant; I wanted to be Bob Hope."

After a tour in the military, Dick Van Dyke went west to California with a friend to do a lip-sync act called The Merry Mutes. They sank, they swam, but it led to radio and TV gigs and time spent living in Atlanta, New Orleans and eventually New York, where he got the Birdie audition.

Van Dyke describes his life as "going with the flow," and there's an easy affability to him that reminds one of Rob Petrie.

"He was Rob Petrie at home," says son Barry, who co-starred with Dad in CBS' long-running Diagnosis Murder. "That's really him. He always played himself. Fans of his feel like they know him because that's the real Dick Van Dyke you see on the screen."

That ease extends to his performance skills. Rob Petrie may have been a klutz, but that was just fun, physical comedy for Van Dyke. "He's just a natural," Barry says. "Everything he does is infuriating. People say, 'Who did he study dancing with? Who did he study singing with?' He never studied anything. He'd audition for a job and learn on the job if he had to. He has that kind of talent. Acting just comes naturally."

When Dick Van Dyke auditioned for Birdie, he didn't know how to dance. "I got in front of (famed choreographer/director) Gower Champion and sang Once in Love With Amy, and I did a little softshoe," he says. "So, I said, 'Mr. Champion, I can't dance.' He said, 'We'll teach you. And he did.' "

Van Dyke wasn't immune to nerves, however. On opening night, "I had a cannonball in my stomach. I was thinking of leaving town. I was so scared because I had never been on the stage singing and dancing in a big Broadway show. But I finally fell into it," he says.

Carl Reiner, who wrote Lucky's foreword, marvels at his range. "Nobody can do the amount of things as well and as brilliantly as he did. He can sing, he can dance, he can do comedy. The scope of his talents is amazing."

But not everything has gone swimmingly in Van Dyke's career.

Birdie was "a romp" on Broadway, but he was "very disappointed" with the movie. "They Hollywood-ized it. They made it a vehicle for Ann-Margret."

And his movies weren't always hits, creatively or financially. "I did some real dogs," he says. But on the bright side, "nobody remembers them. They only remember the good stuff."

Van Dyke's personal life has had its bumps, too. The book touches on some difficult moments, including his drinking. Although he didn't drink during the day or at work, he eventually realized it was affecting his family life and went for treatment.

He has been sober for years and talked publicly about his alcoholism in the 1970s, when there was more of a stigma attached to it.

"People had the impression that Skid Row bums were alcoholics and that something was wrong with your will and character. I thought, 'I'm a middle-class, ordinary person and it happened to me,' and it could happen to anybody," he says.

Van Dyke starred in a 1974 movie The Morning After, about a middle-class guy battling alcoholism, which he says is used in rehab centers. "The director would say, 'You know what you're doing. Go ahead and do it.' He didn't direct me."

Van Dyke also writes about the guilt he felt about getting involved with another woman, Michelle Triola (herself famous for being the ex-companion of actor Lee Marvin), while he was still married to his wife, Margie. He and Margie divorced in 1984.

"My wife, as proud as she was of me, hated show business for good reasons. There was something about the spouse always being pushed out of the way, shoved aside. She wanted to get away from it." Triola understood his desire to entertain. "She was in the business, very supportive."

Both women died of cancer within the past few years. He has lost a number of longtime friends, too, including comic Dick Martin and dramatic actor Richard Crenna.

"I've started keeping company with younger people now. I'm sick of that stuff," says Van Dyke, who gave up smoking long ago and exercises every day.

Inspired by the classics

Van Dyke provides a connection to an even-older Hollywood. He remembers listening to a radio interview in his car when Fred Astaire said he liked the way Van Dyke moved as a dancer. "I almost drove off the freeway."

He has an appreciation for the classic movie comics, having done imitations of Stan Laurel with Chuck McCann as Oliver Hardy earlier in his career. Paintings of Laurel and Buster Keaton adorn his living room. He befriended both, finding Laurel's name in the phone book.

"When I called him, I said, 'Mr. Laurel, I've stolen from you over the years.' He said, 'Yes, I know,' " says Van Dyke, who performed the eulogies at Laurel's and Keaton's funerals.

"Dick loved those guys. They loved him. He always said he thought he was born in the wrong century," says Reiner, who directed Van Dyke in a film about a silent-film-era performer, called The Comic, in the late '60s.

In the same way that Van Dyke sought out his older brethren, younger artists have approached him over the years. "I've had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the Van Dyke Show. They said it looked like fun," he says.

And how does Van Dyke want to be remembered? "Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.' "