Dick Van Dyke

by My Lucky Life In;Out of Show Business

  The show aside, I was personally devastated. We had just moved across country, bought a house, and had a fourth child. I had recently signed on to do the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie. My salary would hold us for about a year. But then what?

  12

  BUSINESS AS USUAL

  It was spring on the bustling studio’s back lot, and I was involved in a rehearsal of the big Conrad Birdie number when my limbs suddenly stiffened. My knees locked and my feet hesitated when normally they flew on automatic pilot. The problem was temporary, though. After a moment, I regained my rhythm and my arms and legs returned to their rubbery precision. The reason for the freeze? Fred Astaire.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the legendary dancer watching the run-through. He was in the back, concealed in the gray shadows beyond the lights, but he was unmistakable.

  As soon as we took a break, he walked up to me and said hello. Not only did he remind me that we had met in New York, but he also flattered me by saying he was a fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Then he went on to explain that he’d come to the set hoping to see me dance. He loved the way I moved. There was only one thing I could possibly say in response, and that was “thank you.”

  What else was I going to say?

  “Thank you, and I like the way you move, too.”

  No, such compliments are rare, and I treasured this one. I still do. Someone had a camera and we posed together—the legend and the luckiest guy on the lot, I thought. I was wearing a nicely tailored suit, but I looked like a tramp next to Fred Astaire. He had that impeccable, iconic sense of style. It was part of that special thing that made him unique.

  My dad had been the same in his own way. He wasn’t as suave as Fred. I mean, who was? But my dad had a taste for nice clothes and an eye for small, stylish touches. In fact, as I chatted with Fred, I thought of my dad, who had always liked nice suits and for a brief time even wore a silk tie around his waist instead of a belt because he had seen Fred Astaire do it.

  Fred asked if I was enjoying myself on the film. I said I was, explaining that it was my first and quite exciting and I was learning a lot. I missed working with Chita, who had been passed over by the movie’s producers, but I was partnered in her place with Janet Leigh, who was not only an Oscar-nominated movie star but a real doll, lots of fun on and off camera, and a warm, generous woman who had my entire family over to her house many times.

  All of us adored her.

  She wasn’t much of a dancer, though you wouldn’t have known from the way choreographer Anna White worked with her individually and the two of us together. A Broadway veteran, White figured out our capabilities and made sure we looked good. But Janet’s limitations in that area might have diminished her standing with the film’s director, George Sidney, who was, quite obviously, enamored with the movie’s young star, Ann-Margret.

  Then again, even if Janet had moved like Ginger Rogers, it’s likely that Sidney would still have been fixated on the very talented redhead. What wasn’t to like about her? She was talented and sexy and just exuded the kind of energy and charisma that let you know a major star was being born.

  But Sidney’s embrace of that potential made the film very different from the play. One afternoon, Janet and I walked onto the set after lunch. She was carping that she wasn’t getting as much screen time as she had been led to believe before shooting began. She didn’t know that for sure, I said. None of us had seen any of the dailies.

  Then we stepped inside the soundstage and I stopped.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “What?” Janet asked.

  I motioned toward the stage. Ann-Margret was sitting on George Sidney’s lap.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” I said.

  “Oh yeah.”

  Nothing was going on other than the director was smitten with a young woman who was about to have the same effect on countless moviegoers. C’est la vie, especially in Hollywood. You couldn’t say a bad word about Ann-Margret. Sweet and polite and barely out of her teens, she was an extremely shy young woman until it was time to work. Then she lit up. She strove to do everything perfectly.

  For the most part, though, she kept to herself. In rehearsals, I had a habit of clowning around and enjoying myself. She didn’t like that. She was very serious, very focused.

  The opposite was true of Paul Lynde, the only actor other than me from the original Broadway production to reprise his role in the movie. Of course, as far as I was concerned, he was irreplaceable. I’m glad the producers felt the same way. And then there was Maureen Stapleton, not to be confused with the television star Jean Stapleton.

  Maureen, cast as my mother despite being only six months older than I was, was an immensely talented actress who’d won a Tony Award in 1951 for starring in Tennessee Williams’s play The Rose Tattoo. But she was a bigger and more memorable character in real life than any she played onstage or in film. Brash and bawdy, she was quite open about having gotten into the business in the 1940s because of her lust for actor Joel McCrea. She was quite open about many of her urges.

  She also had more phobias than any human being I had ever met in my life. She had never been on an airplane. She refused to get in an elevator. And when we left the studio for lunch, I had to hold her hand as we crossed Sunset Boulevard. She was too nervous to cross by herself.

  Maureen walked around the set with a little paper sack. A little nip here and there kept her calm, though her calm occasionally turned quite boisterous and bawdy, depending on the amount she nipped. When the movie wrapped, George Sidney hosted a party at his house, a formal mansion in Beverly Hills. A butler greeted guests and servers and staff bustled inside and out. This was the first Hollywood party I had ever been to, and I was impressed. I half expected to run into royalty.

  Instead, I ran into Maureen and Paul, who arrived together. They were already sloshed. Paul couldn’t face people unless he’d had a couple of drinks, and Maureen was hanging on to him, wearing a muumuu and pearls. Both looked like they were swaying in a strong wind—except there was nary a breeze. I lost them during the cocktail hour, but dinner starred Paul.

  All of us sat at a long table in the dining room. After George Sidney thanked everyone for their contributions to the film, Paul leaned in holding his wineglass as if he were going to say something similar. He didn’t. He held on to the quiet until anticipation built, then he looked at the picture’s star.

  “Ann-Margret,” he said, “I just want you to know that I’m the only one at this table who doesn’t want to screw you.”

  George Sidney’s elderly and quite proper mother gasped. If this had been a movie, something would’ve popped out of her mouth for comedic effect. It was one of those unbelievably audacious moments that momentarily stops time. But it didn’t stop Paul. He couldn’t have cared less. This was his milieu. You could almost see the sparkle in his one-hundred-proof eyes as the wickedly funny one-liners lined up like cars waiting to go through a tollbooth.

  Maureen toasted each one of his off-color remarks until she was quite toasted herself. It was out of control, and it didn’t get any less astonishing when we adjourned to the living room for after-dinner drinks. Maureen was still on her salad, which she carried with her and ate with toothpicks while sitting and sometimes half lying on the floor.

  We all tried to act as if there wasn’t an elephant in the room. But that lasted only so long.

  “Maureen,” I finally said, “wouldn’t you like to sit in a chair?”

  “I’d tell you where I’d like to sit,” she said. “But your wife is here.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. But I didn’t have to. A few minutes later, the maid suffered a heart attack. Paramedics arrived and treated her there on the living room floor where we’d been partying. By the time they took her to the hospital, Maureen was stark naked in the swimming pool, flailing around and calling for the rest of us to join her.

  On the drive home, Margie and I laughed hysterically as we recounted all of the wild shen
anigans. I wondered if all Hollywood parties were like that. Of course, they weren’t, and the movie’s actual premiere in early 1963 paled in comparison. Almost anything would.

  For the premiere, though, Margie and I and Janet and her husband, Robert Brandt, hired a car to take us to the screening in Santa Barbara. We wanted to make it a fun night. But after the movie, Janet was livid. She had no idea that Ann-Margret’s part was going to be so all-consuming and hers would be so minor. After production was completed, Sidney had filmed an additional opening and closing number with Ann-Margret. We saw it for the first time there.

  In the lobby, Janet cornered the director and said, “Where the hell did that song come from?”

  It wasn’t the movie she’d signed on for, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t the play. But as they say, that’s showbiz.

  By then, CBS had changed its mind about The Dick Van Dyke Show and we were well into the second season. I was still working on Birdie when the decision was made. Sheldon had gone directly to the sponsor, Procter & Gamble, and persuaded them to stick with us. However, an even more persuasive argument came from the viewers.

  It turned out the show found an audience during summer reruns, and vice versa—the audience found the show. They embraced it, in fact. Without competition from Perry Como, ratings soared. When the second season began in September 1962, with the Petrie family mourning the death of one of Ritchie’s two pet ducks, an episode called “Never Name a Duck,” the show cracked TV’s Top 10. From there, we never looked back.

  A funny thing happened that second season when Mary and I went back to work. We couldn’t stop giggling when we were around each other. Part of it was the joy of being back together with everyone and getting to continue the series, but our giggles continued past the first episode or two. I finally asked a psychiatrist friend of mine about it. He stated what was patently obvious.

  “Dick, you’ve got a crush on her.”

  I put my head in my hands and laughed.

  Of course I did.

  Who didn’t adore Mary?

  If we had been different people, maybe something would have happened. But neither of us was that type of person.

  Still, we were stuck on each other.

  And others were stuck on us. In addition to ratings, Carl won an Emmy for his writing achievements during the first season, and John Rich received a well-deserved nomination for directing. Both men had done a remarkable job, writing and directing almost every one of the thirty-nine episodes that year. It’s something that still stands out, perhaps even more so because for some shows nowadays an entire season might be comprised of only six or eight episodes. Prolificacy aside, the shows were home runs.

  For season two, they were back at it. Carl continued to draw on all of our lives for material. In the episode “A Bird in the Head Hurts,” Ritchie is traumatized after a woodpecker pecks him in the head. Well, that had actually happened to Carl’s son, Rob. Likewise, Carl’s determination to pick up the check every time we went out to lunch or dinner inspired the episode “My Husband Is a Check-Grabber.” And when he wrote “The Cat Burglar” episode about a phantom burglar who breaks into the Petries’ home, he basically retold an embarrassing story I had recounted to him about an incident that happened to Margie and me when we lived on Long Island.

  In the show, Rob and Laura hear a noise at night and think a cat burglar who has been working the neighborhood has targeted their house. Rob gets out a tiny semiautomatic, but his bullets are in a jewelry case with a ballerina on top. Every time he tries to open it to get the ammo, it plays “The Blue Danube.” In real life, Margie and I heard a loud noise outside and were convinced someone was trying to break into our home.

  I was petrified except for the fact that I had, after much debate, recently bought a small .22 rifle. Moving quietly, I got the gun out of hiding and prepared to defend my family. A moment later, though, I turned to my wife with a look of horror on my face.

  “What’s wrong?” she said in a whisper.

  I thought even that was too much noise and put my finger to my mouth, telling her to shush. I tried to respond without making a sound.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” she whispered.

  I tried again.

  “I can’t see to read your lips,” she said. “It’s too dark.”

  “I can’t find the bullets,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes as if I should have known. “They’re in my jewelry box.”

  I tiptoed across the room to her dresser and opened the jewelry box. As soon as I lifted the lid, it started to play music, “The Blue Danube.” I slammed it shut and gave her a look. Why had she put the bullets in her jewelry box? How was I going to get them out without the burglar hearing Johann Strauss’s famous waltz? What was I going to do?

  I stood there, waiting for something to happen, and when nothing did, I picked up my unloaded rifle, pretended it was in fact ready for business, and went to see what was what. In the end, I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Margie and I were sure we had heard a noise outside, but the rest must have been our imaginations running scared.

  My father had a difficult time reconciling my success. “Never in my wildest imagination,” he used to say. I was on the phone with him one Saturday, telling him about everything that was happening to me, and his amazement nearly matched mine. He made a surprising confession: He never thought I would amount to much of anything.

  “Do you remember the summer you sold shoes in my brother’s store?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “I was paid on commission.”

  “How many shoes did you sell?” he asked.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” I said. “But pretty close to none.”

  “Son, I have to tell you, I feared everything you touched was going to work out like that,” he said, laughing. “Your grandmother is here and we’re all proud of what you’re doing.”

  Having given up his life as a bon vivant jazz musician and baseball player when I came along, my father not only marveled that I was making a living from my passion for having fun, but he also appreciated it as much as I did. I had a five-picture deal with Columbia, and I had a separate production company with my manager, Byron, who was negotiating for several projects, including one with my idol Stan Laurel for a film on Laurel and Hardy.

  I also had a two-album recording deal, an invitation to headline at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, and as soon as the second season of The Dick Van Dyke Show wrapped I began work on the movie What a Way to Go.

  The comedy, written by the multitalented Broadway legend Betty Comden, told the story of a wealthy woman marrying one man after another, and getting wealthier with each one, all of whom happened to die prematurely as they struggled to make more and more money. Shirley MacLaine starred along with Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Robert Cummings, and me, in the role of her first husband, meaning I had a small part and died early.

  But I had fun. Shirley was a rascal. We were on location one day and she didn’t want her makeup man to touch her up, so she took off across a field, running at full speed. I watched in puzzled amusement as her makeup man sprinted after her, caught up, and tackled her as if they were two football players in the open field. Pinning her down, he applied makeup. Both of them returned to the set laughing.

  Before I departed, I had one scene with Dean Martin, an easygoing, friendly man who referred to me as Dickie. Anybody from the nightclub circuit, especially comics, has a diminutive name like Dean-o, Jackie, Billy, Sammy, or in my case, Dickie. Dean played a guy who stole Shirley from me. His dad owned the big department store in town. As we worked, I thought, There is no way they can use this footage. The man is smashed.

  True to form, Dean had been drinking on the set while entertaining various beautiful women who had come to visit him. One day it was Ursula Andress, the next day it was some other babe. He seemed to treat every hour as if it were happy hour. But when I saw him on screen, I couldn�
��t tell he was drunk—and neither could anyone else. He was just Dean being Dean. That’s what he did, and it obviously worked for him.

  After making the movie, I found myself thinking about what worked for me, and also what I wanted to do for work, what was important to me, and what I wanted my work to say about me.

  13

  A JOLLY HOLIDAY

  Following What a Way to Go, I determined to be more careful about the choices I made. The movie’s script had been a pleasure to read, but the final version included some colorful ad-libbing that made it significantly different, more adult in tone, and had I known that initially I would have turned it down.

  I met my agent, Sol Leon, for lunch at the commissary, and talked through my concerns. He asked the obvious questions: What kind of films did I want to make? Where did I see myself going in terms of movies? What sort of scripts should he look for?

  “I’ve thought about this,” I said, “and I’m pretty clear on it. I only want to make movies that my children can see.”

  “Only kids’ movies?” he asked.

  “Not kids’ movies,” I clarified. “I want to make movies that I can see with my kids and not feel uncomfortable.”

  He expressed slight worry that that might limit my opportunities, particularly at this time when standards in Hollywood, like the culture itself, were beginning to change and evolve into what we remember as the more liberal, experimental Sixties. But I didn’t share his worries. I had a long-term vision in mind. One of an actor’s biggest challenges, perhaps his or her most important, is choosing the right role. I knew that having a well-defined standard would ultimately help my representatives find the right material, and if they did their jobs right, and I did mine, ultimately the material would define me in a way that would make me comfortable for the rest of my career.

  It was similar to Carl wanting The Dick Van Dyke Show to be timeless, or Fred Astaire movies seeming classic. If I always felt comfortable taking the whole family to one of my films, I knew others would, too, and that would serve me well over time.