My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir by Dick Van Dyke

              For some reason there appears to be a belief that nothing and nobody good or of worth comes from the Midwest. I do not know where this mentality comes from, but I have heard it quite frequently in all sorts of media. As a person born and raised in the Midwest, it can be very frustrating to hear the cracks and implications about people from this part of the country. I know wonderful people have come from here. Dick Van Dyke is one of those people and I greatly enjoyed his book, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir. 

           Raised in Danville, IL, Dick Van Dyke has had quite a lengthy and eclectic career. His most famous work is probably The Dick Van Dyke Show. Having never seen the show, I know Mr. Van Dyke because of Mary Poppins and Diagnosis: Murder. Reading this book, I discovered that these are only a few of the things Mr. Van Dyke has done throughout his career.

          In the early years Mr. Van Dyke spent his life on the road with a singing partner. This led to becoming part of a morning show. Then Mr. Van Dyke starred in the original Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie, despite not being able to dance. From this point, Mr. Van Dyke moved to The Dick Van Dyke Show. As I mentioned before, I have never seen this show, but I did find this part of the book really interesting. Carl Reiner is the creator of the show and while he could have easily made it his way only, he did not. Instead, everyone was allowed to contribute ideas to the episodes. Anything someone said or had experienced in life could become part of a script. It was truly a collaborative effort.

              Mary Poppins came next. Mr. Van Dyke had such a great time with this film. He played two characters, the well loved Bert and the old banker Mr. Dawes Sr. How he got to be Mr. Dawes Sr. is a funny and confusing story. At first Mr. Van Dyke was not cast to play the old banker character, but he wanted to. The filmmakers were not so sure but Mr. Van Dyke was determined, even offering to do it for free, if I remember correctly. Somehow Walt Disney convinced Mr. Van Dyke to go from working for free to paying for the part! You will have to read how this came to be because it still does not make sense to me. I just think it is a funny story.

            To me Mr. Van Dyke’s career leaped from Mary Poppins to Diagnosis: Murder with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in between. There was so much more work he did that I was not aware of, including films about alcoholism. No matter what the work, I found out in the book that is was important for Mr. Van Dyke to only do things his kids could see.

          While most of the book is about his career, Mr. Van Dyke is quite open and honest about his personal life. He spoke freely about his alcoholism and smoking addiction. Then there was the end of his marriage. Married for a very long time to a woman named Margie, Mr. Van Dyke was 100% faithful until the near end of the marriage. Margie never liked Hollywood and continuously pushed Mr. Van Dyke to retire. This was not something Mr. Van Dyke could do. He wanted to keep working and while he did met a woman named Michelle. She worked in the industry and understood what Mr. Van Dyke was going through on his projects. Caught between two women he loved and cared for greatly, Mr. Van Dyke did eventually divorce from Margie. They remained friends until her dying day. I do not mean this loosely. To my understanding, their friendship was strong to the point that Mr. Van Dyke was by his ex-wife’s side, along with their family, when she died. As for Michelle, she and Mr. Van Dyke never married, but they remained together until her death.

            The deaths of his ex-wife and partner were sad to read, but they were not the saddest parts of the book. Reading about the death of Mr. Van Dyke’s teenage granddaughter was. After taking baby aspirin while having chicken pox, Mr. Van Dyke’s granddaughter developed Reye’s syndrome and died. That must have been absolutely devastating.

           This book is free of attacks on people, which I really like. There are times where he talks about people he did not particularly care for, but he writes about them with civility. Even when Mr. Van Dyke talks about his political involvements and activities in the civil rights movement he does it cleanly. Only once does he really get angry. This happens when the church Mr. Van Dyke was involved with refused to abandon their segregationist views. Mr. Van Dyke felt African Americans should be invited to the church so everyone could worship together. When the church refused the motion, Mr. Van Dyke left and did not come back.

           Even though Mr. Van Dyke is in his eighties, he continues to work. His book shows that despite having written his life story, Mr. Van Dyke’s life is not over yet. There is plenty more for him to do. I suspect that whatever he does, it will be with the same lightness and humor that he used to write this book and throughout his career.