What Was Dick Van Dyke’s First Role?
Dick Van Dyke, who turns 99 on Dec. 13, has been acting for over half a century, in both beloved film classics like Mary Poppins and small-screen gems like The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis Murder. But where did Van Dyke get his start? Before he was Rob Petrie, Bert the Chimney Sweep, or any of this other iconic roles, how did his incredibly long-running acting career begin? The answer involves World War II, local TV, and a surprise appearance from Walter Cronkite.
Midwestern native Van Dyke was born in Missouri and raised in Illinois. Growing up in a poor family, Van Dyke’s one indulgence was going to the movies, where he took in performances by great funnymen like Buster Keaton and Laurel & Hardy (decades later, he’d speak at both Keaton and Hardy’s funerals). In his high school drama club, he discovered his passion for performance, but any plans to immediately head to Hollywood were derailed by World War II; Van Dyke skipped his senior year of high school in 1944 to enlist.
Everett Collection
After trying and failing to qualify for flight training, Van Dyke joined the Army Air Forces as a radio announcer and entertainer. Once he was back in civilian life, he and his friend Phil Erickson formed a comedy duo called “Eric and Van — the Merry Mutes,” who comedically mimed to pre-recorded material.
He and Erickson settled in Atlanta for a time; when they went their separate ways, Van Dyke moved on to New Orleans, where he found a gig as an on-air comedian for local TV station WDSU-TV. Van Dyke eventually left to pursue a career appearing as a comedian on national shows like The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom. Eventually, he became an anchor on CBS’ The Morning Show, alongside Walter Cronkite. But Van Dyke returned to WDSU in 1958 for the station’s 10th anniversary special.
In 1959, a now New York City-based Van Dyke first appeared on Broadway in a revue show called The Girls Against the Boys, which ran for just under a month.
The following year, Van Dyke achieved his first big professional breakthrough in 1960, as one of the stars of Bye Bye Birdie — at the relatively mature (for a beginning actor, anyway) age of 35. Though he was well over a decade into his performing career, his turn as Albert Peterson was his first acting role — and it earned him his first Tony.
In the audience at one of the performances was funnyman Carl Reiner, who approached Van Dyke about the role that would make him famous — TV writer and family man Rob Petrie, on groundbreaking sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Even as he nears his centennial birthday, Van Dyke still performs — he had a role in the 2018 sequel Mary Poppins Returns, and just last week, he starred in a new video for the UK band Coldplay. In a spoken part of the video, Van Dyke reflects on his life and career: ““I think I’m one of those lucky people who got to do for a living, what I would have done anyway. ”
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1950s Musicals
November 2020
Bright and brassy, toe-tapping musicals from the 1950s
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