Spoilers in this review: None.
I don’t usually read celebrity bios (celebrity blah-blahs), but this one caught my eye, literally, with its dust jacket photo. I saw the over-long up-kicked leg and big open smile, a photo of fun and action. Who wouldn’t know who it was? Dick Van Dyke! I have been a little bit in love with him my whole life. Even if you are pretty young, I bet you know comedian Dick Van Dyke. He’s the guy who tripped over the footstool at the start of every Dick Van Dyke Show. (He’s the reason I ever learned the word ottoman.) He’s the guy who drew the chalk paintings in Mary Poppins and did the chimney sweep song, “Chim-chim-che-ree.” He’s the one who drove the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He’s the one your grandmother enjoys so much in Diagnosis Murder. You don’t have to know who he is. But you might get a few good laughs if you did. If he was in it, it’s probably good and funny.
Van Dyke fills this too-slender volume with memories, reflections, confessions, friends, family, and faith. He is “in it” on every page. Of course, he worked with a ghost writer/collaborator (who is in the acknowledgments), but it still sounds like Dick, like Rob Petrie, like Bert. You can almost hear Van Dyke reading to you.
Van Dyke asserts right up front that he will not be dishing dirt or disclosing secrets. That’s not his way and it is consistent with his values. Early in his career he made a conscious professional decision that he would not work on projects that he couldn’t discuss at the supper table with his kids, or those that he wouldn’t want his entire family to see. The reader (or viewer) can trace the evolution of that doctrine through his body of work. Some people classify Van Dyke as a lightweight because he never did “serious” work. Well, it was serious to him. Making people laugh was serious business and hard work. My Lucky Life will tell you all about it. I’m not going to give spoilers in this review.
And gol-durnit, Van Dyke is actually old. What a good time for a memoir! Who’d have thought it? He actually has close to 80 years of experience in the front lines of our culture wars. He has the perspective and authenticity of a man whose retirements (there were many) never lasted longer than a few months. He closes the book reflectively, noting that he agrees now that he will never retire, will never get tired of eliciting a laugh or a grin, will never go over to the “dark” side of comedy. Reading this book made me proud to have a slight life-long crush on Dick Van Dyke. His professional career spans my entire life, as he came into prominence and I came into being in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Best Bit: My favorite bit, which sort of summed it all up for me, was when Van Dyke described a barbershop-style quartet he formed in his late 70s with three other stars (all of whom about 30 years younger). They started singing gigs at fundraisers and hospitals, charity events. The Vantastix, as they were called, sang often at the children’s cancer hospital, City of Hope. He says, “We stopped at the bed of a very sick fifteen-year-old boy. We tiptoed into his room and quietly sang a song. He did not react. Thinking he was asleep, we began to file out when suddenly we heard him ask, ‘Could I hear another one please?’ We turned around and sang a whole bunch of songs. He barely opened his eyes, but after we finished “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” I saw his mouth curl into a faint smile. As far as I am concerned, applause does not get any louder.” He says, “In fifty-plus years of show business, I never had a better audience.”
Main complaint: This book is too short. I would love to hear more about every part of Van Dyke’s life and work. More details! More Details! And, oops, he got me! He did just what Carl Reiner taught him in the early 1960s, when he ended The Dick Van Dyke Show, to leave them laughing and leave them wanting more. Now I’m laughing.
Minor complaint: Not enough photos—the sixteen pages provided don’t do it!
Hidden gifts: (1) There is an index. An indexed book cares about its reader. (2) Generous type size and spacing—yep, if you love Dick Van Dyke, you’re likely to be wearing corrective lenses. (3) Some really smart people helped Van Dyke with this book. (3) An acknowledgment is given to “collaborator” Todd Gold. Good job, Todd.
Physical description: Book-shaped (not squared down, elongated, over-sized or under-sized); published by Crown/Archetype; 16 pages of b/w and color photos; terrific dust jack showing Van Dyke old and new (and also new and old); brief forward by Carl Reiner; Copyright owned by Point Productions, Inc., not by Van Dyke; dedication to his children; table of contents; 28 chapters; 273 pages.
Typo: In the table of contents, it says “Insert Photo Credits.” I think “insert” was an instruction, not a word to be typeset. That’s how we got t-shirts that say “Big Ohio” on the bottom.
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