‘Diminished’ Dick Van Dyke reflects on life weeks before his 100th birthday

Weeks before he turns 100, entertainer Dick Van Dyke has talked about the ups and downs of living to such a ripe old age, and admitted it is frustrating to feel “diminished in the world”.

The actor, comedian and singer, who has enjoyed a decades’-long career, reflected on the trials and tribulations of old age ahead of his 100th birthday on December 13 in an essay for The Sunday Times, which was dotted with self-deprecating humour.

Van Dyke spoke about his “physical deterioration” and “physical decay” that came with old age. But it wasn’t all bad news, with the Mary Poppins star also adding he had a “joyful and fulfilling” life, in part thanks to his much younger wife of 13 years, Arlene.

Van Dyke, who was forced to pull out of his own event due to ill health earlier this year, wrote in the essay, “It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially.

“Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer. I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible.

“My sight is so bad now that origami is out of the question.

“I have trouble following group conversations and complain frequently about my hearing aids, though I would never refer to them as ear trumpets. I’m not that old.”

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Van Dyke said “almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house”, but if he does go out, he struggled to find a shirt that wasn’t stained.

“When my wife, Arlene, asks me to put on an unstained shirt before we go out, I get impatient,” he said.

Van Dyke said he believed he had made it to 99 “because I have stubbornly refused to give in to the bad stuff in life”.

“Failures and defeats, personal losses, loneliness and bitterness, the physical and emotional pains of ageing,” he said.

“That stuff is real, but I have not let it define me.

“Instead, for the vast majority of my years, I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living.”

He said he owed his longevity to “romance, doing what I love, and a whole lot of laughing”.

Van Dyke said he and his wife, who is 56, start each day by dancing together.

He said being married to someone half his age made him feel “somewhere between two thirds and three quarters” younger than he is.

“Every day, she finds a new way to keep me up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed,” he said.

“Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch.”

He said staying physically active – he still hits the gym three times a week – and singing with an a cappella group, the Vantastix, also kept him young.

It is not the first time Van Dyke has credited his wife for keeping him young.

At one of his own Vandy Camp events in October, a member of the audience asked what his secret was for looking so young before he motioned to his wife and said, “Right here beside me”.

His appearance at the event came after he was forced to pull out of the previous Vandy Camp in June at the last minute due to ill health, with his wife instead taking to the stage to tell ticket holders he could not make it.

“When you’re 99 and a half years old, you have good days and bad days… and unfortunately, today is not a good day for him, and he’s sick that he can’t be here,” she said at the time. 

Just last month, Van Dyke was asked about his upcoming milestone birthday when he quipped, ”That’s right. I’m not officially 100 until December… Two months. Two months. It’d be funny if I didn’t make it.”

Van Dyke started performing as a teenager with his school’s a cappella group and drama club.

He dropped out of high school during his senior year to join the army air corps and wanted to be a pilot, but eventually trained as a gunner during World War II before being seconded to entertain troops.

After the war, he became a radio DJ, then formed a comedy duo before moving to New York where he made his Broadway stage debut.

His big break came when he scored the lead role in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, which earned him a Tony Award. It led to his own weekly television sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and then one of his best-known roles, as Burt the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.

It was followed by another musical-fantasy, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and later The Carol Burnett Show.

In recent years, he has enjoyed a career resurgence, even winning a second Daytime Emmy Award in 2024 – 40 years after his first.

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