It’s been more than five decades since he twirled his chimney sweep’s brush, looped arms with Julie Andrews , and dazzled us with that megawatt smile – and dubious cockney accent.
Now, at the ripe old age of 90, Dick Van Dyke is as chirpy as ever. And he is more than happy to discuss the accent he’s been gently mocked for ever since his turn in the 1964 classic Mary Poppins.
Dick explains that his voice coach wasn’t even English, never mind being from East London. He says: “They only sent a coach to me once for that accent.
“And he was an Irishman – his cockney accent was not much better than mine.”
Dick became a household name in the 1960s after his starring roles in Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
And he’s still going strong. When I call him at his LA home, it’s 10am. He’s been up since six and has already spent an hour in the gym.
Even his wife Arlene Silver – his “child bride” who, at 44, is 46 years his junior and one of the “secrets” to his continued good health – is not yet awake.
He says: “I get up on the right side of the bed, but my wife isn’t a morning person – I talk to her at 10pm!”
He seems irrepressibly chipper, but there is one person who can dampen Dick’s spirits – Donald Trump .
“He is scaring me to death,” he says of the Republican US presidential nominee.
“Why don’t people see through him? He has a following of millions of people.
He reminds me of Mussolini back in the 1940s. The other day he said, ‘I am the only one who can save you.’ That’s the line of a dictator or a tyrant. Not a democratic politician. He really has got me so scared,” says Dick.
“About 30 well-known psychiatrists came out and said, ‘This man is narcissistic and has delusions of grandeur.’
“They don’t think he’s fit – I don’t think he’s fit to be a leader of anything, really.”
And Dick’s opinion of the presidential candidate hasn’t changed much since he first met the tycoon, as a much younger man at a beach party in Malibu, California.
He says: “He had a shirt opened down to the waist with a bunch of chains on. I kind of passed judgment on him then. I don’t think he knew who I was.”
His laugh is infectious, and Dick, an American actor and all-round entertainer who grew up in Illinois, has made a career out of making people giggle.
Originally a radio DJ, he began touring as part of a comedy duo before making his Broadway debut and finally becoming a household name with The Dick Van Dyke show in the 1960s. Now he’s a nonagenarian he has lost none of his zest for life.
“I’m still singing and dancing,” he says. “I go to the gym in the morning and try and get in the pool three days a week.” He knows he’s lucky to still be so active.
“I do struggle with arthritis. I was doing Chitty Bang Bang and I pulled a muscle in my leg doing a dance number.
“The doctor said from the X-ray I was riddled from head to foot with arthritis – and predicted I’d be in a walker within five to seven years. But I’m still dancing!”
The only ill health he’s suffered was a bout of pneumonia in Vancouver two years ago when he was filming the comedy Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb with Ben Stiller.
He says: “I was struck with pneumonia and my lung collapsed. They told me I might have breathing problems but I don’t have any. I’m very lucky.”
Despite remaining healthy as he grows older, Dick says he often experiences age discrimination. He says: “Whether I am recognised or not makes all the difference in the world. If I’m recognised I’m treated very nicely, but sometimes if they think I’m just an old guy, I don’t get much attention at all.
“I walked into Tommy Hilfiger and I barely got in the door and the young salesgirl said, ‘Sir, I don’t think you’ll find anything you’ll like in here’.
“And I was at a designer handbag shop, and said, ‘Can I see that purse on the shelf?’ I wanted to buy it for Arlene.
“And the salesgirl said, ‘Sir, I don’t think you could afford that’,” he says.
“The last acceptable discrimination is age discrimination. It’s sad because elderly people used to be respected for their experience and wisdom but they get sidelined and it’s too bad.”
Luckily, Dick says he doesn’t get much hassle when he’s out with Arlene, who he met in 2006 when she was working as a make-up artist.
He explains: “We get, ‘Is this your daughter?’ That happens a lot, and I’m very proud to say, ‘No, it’s my wife.’ But people have never been insulting to us.”
The couple married in 2012 and Dick says they were initially wary of the age gap. His eldest son, a lawyer – one of four children with his first wife, Margie Willett – was cautious that Arlene might be a gold-digger. But the actor says: “She won them over pretty quickly.”
However, Dick is still pragmatic about his advancing years.
“I have a living will,” he says. “And the last thing I would want is for her to care for me. That I wouldn’t stand for. I tell her I would like her to find someone else.
“She is young, beautiful and bright so she won’t have any problem at all finding a partner. It makes me happy she would have another life with someone else.
“I don’t have any qualms about death. There is nothing foreboding about it for me. I choose to live in the moment.”
Dick’s sunny disposition endures despite him having experienced his fair share of loss. He separated from Margie in the 1970s, when they were both going through difficult periods.
Dick was dealing with alcoholism – the closest he says he has ever come to depression – and Margie with an addiction to an anti-anxiety drug.
But the pair were still close when she died of pancreatic cancer in 2007. He says: “With her death I lost a part of myself.”
After his spilt from Margie he found love again with actress Michelle Triloa, who was his partner for three decades. She passed away from lung cancer in 2009.
He says: “I sang and talked to her until the hospice nurses told me she was gone.” Dick also lost his first grandchild, Jessica, in 1987, when she was just 13. She had Reye’s syndrome, a rare disease associated with taking aspirin to treat the symptoms of viral infections.
“That loss destroyed everyone and changed our lives for ever,” he says.
But it seems Dick’s eternally cheery demeanour gives him great resilience.
“I find letting go is hard, but you really have to. I have had to let go so many times it has kind of become a way of life.”
At 90, he still has ambitions. He regularly sings with his a capella group, Dick Van Dyke and The Vantastix, and he wants to do some “serious” acting.
“I’m trying to get someone to let me do Death of a Salesman. And I’ve always wanted to do a bit of Shakespeare.”
But there is one job he might not be so keen on pursuing – a part in Disney’s upcoming Mary Poppins remake, with Emily Blunt in Julie Andrews’ shoes.
“I’d have to see the script,” he says, diplomatically. “Without Walt Disney, and the Sherman brothers to write the score, and Julie, it will be difficult, I think.
“Every day we came to work and we knew there was something magical going on. There was such a spirit,” he says of filming the 1964 original.
“Walt was always there as a morale builder. We both said we were children looking for our inner adult – Walt was such a big kid.
“Sequels are traditionally not as good as the first. But I wish them well.”
Best wishes from Dick Van Dyke? That’s sure to go down well, even without a spoonful of sugar.
- Dick Van Dyke’s autobiography is now published in the UK. My Lucky Life: In And Out of Show Business is published by John Blake and is available for £8.99.
