Dick Van Dyke turns 100 on Saturday, marking a century as one of Hollywood’s most admired entertainers who shows no signs of retiring.
The actor, known for his roles in film, television, and stage, celebrates the milestone on December 13, feeling fit and eager for more.
“I’m so lucky. I don’t have any ache or pain,” Van Dyke told “Good Morning America” in an interview released on Friday.
He added that he visits the gym three times weekly alongside his wife, Arlene Silver, who is 54. Though he frequently portrayed irritable elders in his work, Van Dyke described his own outlook as upbeat.
“You know I played old men a lot. And I always played ’em as angry, and cantankerous,” he said. “It’s not really that way. I don’t know any other 100-year-old, but I can speak for myself.”
Even at this landmark age, he expressed a desire to continue.
“The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” he said. “A hundred years is not enough. You wanna live more, which I plan to.”
Van Dyke’s versatile career — spanning singing, dancing, and acting — earned him triple-threat status in the industry. He started in radio before landing on Broadway in 1959 with “The Girls Against the Boys.”
Fame arrived in 1961, when he starred in the CBS comedy “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran until 1966 and featured him opposite Mary Tyler Moore.
His iconic screen performances include Bert, the chimney sweep, in Disney’s “Mary Poppins,” a role he revisited in the 2018 sequel “Mary Poppins Returns.”
He also led musicals such as 1963’s “Bye Bye Birdie” and 1968’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
In recent years, Van Dyke competed on “The Masked Singer” in 2023, exiting the first round but performing an encore of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins.”
He has reflected fondly on his time creating “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” calling it the highlight of his professional life.
“All of us involved,” he once said, “say The Dick Van Dyke Show was the best five years of our lives. We were like otters at play.”
