When Dick Van Dyke walked into Television City, a CBS-owned television studio in Los Angeles, he assumed he was there for another press interview.
But the legendary actor was in for one of the greatest surprises of his life: the recording of Dick Van Dyke’s 98 Years of Magic, a spectacular two-hour CBS tribute show including archive material and live performances of songs from Van Dyke’s renowned, decades-long career.
Van Dyke, who turns 98 on Wednesday, said in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE that seeing the occurrence was bizarre.
“You think, ‘I don’t deserve this,’ but it’s difficult to say how I felt,” he said. “When I got home, I said, ‘You know what? It will take a few days for this to set in that it truly happened.’ That type of recognition surprised me. My entire existence had gone before me. I had no idea I had accomplished so much in my 75 years in show business.”
Watching precisely replicated song and dance sequences of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s “Me Ol’ Bamboo” were among the highlights for the Emmy, Grammy, and SAG Award-winning performer. “I was just completely blown away,” he recalls.
Van Dyke, who was born on December 13, 1925, in West Plains, Missouri, and raised in Danville, Illinois, began his career in radio and on Broadway before landing on Carl Reiner’s The Dick Van Dyke Show, which aired from 1961 to 1966 and starred Mary Tyler Moore as his wife. The comedy launched Van Dyke and Moore to popularity and won them Emmy nominations.
While filming The Dick Van Dyke Show, he appeared in Walt Disney Pictures’ now-classic Mary Poppins alongside Julie Andrews, Karen Dotrice, and Matthew Garber. The 1964 picture “was special,” he told people in 2011. “I enjoyed working with children.” You spend a lot of time clowning and getting to know them.”
Following the film came a run of film and television roles, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dick Tracy. From 1993 until 2001, he starred in the CBS mystery thriller Diagnosis: Murder as Dr. Mark Sloan, a teaching physician who solved homicides in his leisure time.
Van Dyke went on to feature in 2006’s Night at the Museum and 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns, and he’s still working today. This year alone, he appeared as an amnesiac on Days of Our Lives, as Gnome in The Masked Singer, and as himself on The Simpsons.
While Van Dyke was a busy entertainer, he also had a lively personal life. With his late ex-wife Margerie Willett, to whom he was married for 36 years, he had four children: Christian, Barry, Stacy, and Carrie Beth. He married makeup artist Arlene Silver in 2012 after meeting her at the SAG Awards six years earlier.
“I just went up and introduced myself as ‘Hi, I’m Dick.'” “I’m not sure where I got the courage,” he says. “Anyway, we got married.” She has the voice of an angel. She dances, and we do an entire act together. We sing duets and other stuff. She’s the finest companion I’ve ever had. It’s really a delight.”
Van Dyke plans on spending his actual birthday on Wednesday in low-key fashion, surrounded by several of his grandchildren. “I’m not much on traditions, I don’t think,” he explains, but the entertainer admits he finds joy and gratitude “every day of my life.”
“In the morning, my wife brings me a cup of coffee.” I put it on my bed. “I’m treated like a king around here,” he says of his residence in Southern California.
If there’s one uncommon “sad moment” in Van Dyke’s life right now, it’s the quiet problem that many nonagenarians face: the comedian is outliving many of his pals, notably Norman Lear, who died on December 5 at the age of 101.
“I had a bunch of friends there to say nice things, but Mary Tyler Moore, Morey [Amsterdam] and Rosie [Rose Marie], Carl Reiner, Norman Lear—all the people that I always loved and associated with are gone, so I’m having to make new friends,” he said.
Fortunately, the legendary actor does not have to travel far to do this.
“I’m happy to say people come to me,” he said. “I don’t have to go out looking.”