Dick Van Dyke Slows Down at 99
The beloved TV icon, who will celebrate his 100th birthday on Dec. 13, shared an update on his health in a new essay for The Times.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” Van Dyke admitted.
Dick Van Dyke attends the 43rd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in May 2021.
“I get invites to events or offers for gigs in New York or Chicago, but that kind of travel takes so much out of me that I have to say no,” the Mary Poppins star explained. “Almost all of my visiting with friends now has to happen at my house.”
Van Dyke also reflected on how his physical decline echoes some of the older characters he has played.
“Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler, and a teeterer,” he admitted. “I have feet problems, and I lie down as often as is politely possible.”
Dick Van Dyke was spotted using a walker in Malibu on September 19.
“I see those fake old-timers smacking their dentures,” he joked. “I chew nicotine gum all day long — decades after quitting smoking! My eyesight is so bad that origami is out of the question. I struggle to follow group conversations and complain about my hearing aids, though I would never call them ‘ear trumpets.’”
Dick Van Dyke on the set of Diagnosis: Murder in 1998
Eating has also become a challenge for the Emmy-winning actor, who is cared for by his much-younger wife, Arlene Silver, 54.
“At mealtime, I spill things, and when Arlene asks me to put on a clean shirt before we go out, I get impatient,” he admitted. “‘It’s got blueberry all over it,’ she’ll say. ‘Polka dots are in again!’ I’ll reply.”
“But the superficial stuff — the physical decline — is about the only thing I share with the older characters I played long ago,” Van Dyke added. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could be.”
In addition, the “Murder 101” star credited Silver with helping him live this long.
“Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch,” he stated. “Arlene is half my age, and she makes me feel somewhere between two thirds and three quarters my age, which is still saying a lot. Every day she finds a new way to keep me up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed.”
Dick Van Dyke and Arlene Silver at the premiere of Mary Poppins Returns in Los Angeles on Nov. 29, 2018.
Despite being nearly 100, Van Dyke still hits the gym three times a week.
“I don’t know why this is something I still want to do, but it is,” he said. “I’m not a ‘wake up and go back to bed’ type just yet — unless it’s cold and rainy. If I miss too many gym days, I really feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there. If I let that set in, well, God help me.”
Dick Van Dyke at the 2017 AMD British Academy Britannia Awards
“At the gym, I usually do a circuit, moving from one machine to the next without a break,” the Bye Bye Birdie star explained. “I start with the sit-up machine — Arlene says I could do 500, though that might be an exaggeration. Then I work all the leg machines religiously because my legs are two of my most cherished possessions. Finally, I move on to the upper body.
Dick Van Dyke in New York in June 1983
Van Dyke also revealed that music is “the secret ingredient” to sticking with his fitness routine.
“Most of my humming and singing happens when I’m moving from one machine to another,” he shared. “By ‘moving,’ I mean dancing. You heard me — dancing! And if I’m really feeling it, I’m no quiet warbler; I’m a Broadway belter.”
