Dick Van Dyke: I did the worst British accent in the history of cinema

Hollywood legend Dick Van Dyke's memoir chronicles his long life both in and out of showbusiness. He spoke to Kate Whiting about some of the highlights.
Dick Van Dyke has just released his memoirs My Lucky Life.Dick Van Dyke has just released his memoirs My Lucky Life.
Dick Van Dyke has just released his memoirs My Lucky Life.

At 90, Dick Van Dyke has not lost an ounce of the charm, humour and joie de vivre that propelled him to global stardom in 1964’s Mary Poppins.

Neither does he seem to have tired of discussing his character Bert – the all-singing, all-dancing chimney sweep – and his rather dodgy cockney accent.

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“Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons were asked who did the worst British accent in the history of the cinema and, of course, I won hands down,” he says with a chuckle. “I wrote them a note and said, ‘It’s nice to be number one!’ But the funny thing is, I was working with a cast of almost all Brits, and neither Julie [Andrews] nor anyone else ever said, ‘You know, you ought to work on that accent’.”

Van Dyke hails originally from Missouri and grew up in Illinois. Today, it’s Malibu in California he calls home – which is where he is, munching on a breakfast of raisin bran and blueberries, when I call him for our phone interview, to coincide with the UK paperback release of his memoir, My Lucky Life: In And Out Of Show Business.

A true entertainer, beloved by students of a certain age for his long-running daytime show Diagnosis Murder, Van Dyke’s career began almost by chance during the Second World War.

At 17, he’d planned to join the US Air Force but flunked his military exams, which meant he couldn’t be a fighter pilot and was assigned to Special Services, putting on variety shows at a base in Texas.

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“That was the coward’s way out – singing and dancing to avoid being a bombardier – but that was what got me into show business and I decided I liked it!”

Years of hard graft followed, as Van Dyke toured his lip-syncing act The Merry Mutes, finally making his name, quite literally, in the sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. Walt Disney came knocking, attracted by Van Dyke’s ‘good, clean fun’ principle, which he credits for his long-lasting career. “I’ve always tried to keep it to family entertainment, and I got lucky enough to be in such good productions with Disney, they’ve lasted 50 years,” he says. “Good family entertainment’s rare, and I’m on my third generation with kids.”

His book evokes the Golden Age of Hollywood, with the likes of Fred Astaire dropping in to watch a run-through of his Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie, and Frank Sinatra cooking him pasta. It’s a very different place now, he says: “There is no Hollywood any more. Los Angeles really isn’t the centre of film-making, they make them everywhere else.... everything’s a franchise now, like Star Wars, and the actors become almost interchangeable.” And it’s tough to get work over a certain age. “Somebody said the final and last acceptable discrimination is ageism, and it’s very true.”

One ambition he would still like to realise, however, is “doing a Shakespeare”.

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“I’m the right age for King Lear right now,” he chuckles. Perhaps he could play Lear on stage in the West End? He thinks for a beat, and then says: “I could, yeah, if they don’t mind my accent.”

My Lucky Life: In And Out Of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke published in paperback by John Blake Publishing, £8.99.

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