Dick Van Dyke

from the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television

Dick Van Dyke's entertainment career began during World War II when he participated in variety shows and worked as an announcer while serving in the military. That career has continued with five decades of work as an actor on network and local television, the stage and in motion pictures. The television work started with his role as host of variety programs in Atlanta, Georgia, and his first foray into network television came in 1956 as the emcee of CBS Television's Cartoon Theater.

But it was his role as Rob Petrie on the classic CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show that insured his place in television history. He was cast by series creator Carl Reiner and series producer Sheldon Leonard in the role of a television comedy writer (Reiner himself played in the series pilot Head of the Family). He was selected over another television pioneer, Johnny Carson. Plucked from a starring role on the Broadway stage in Bye Bye Birdie, Van Dyke used his unique talent for physical comedy, coupled with his ability to sing and dance, to play Robert Simpson Petrie, the head writer of the Alan Brady Show. Complementing Van Dyke was a veteran cast of talented comedic actors including Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Jerry Paris, Carl Reiner (as Alan Brady), as well as a newcomer to television Mary Tyler Moore, who played Rob's wife Laura Petrie.

In many ways The Dick Van Dyke Show broke new ground in network television. The series created quite a stir when, in the early 1960s, husband and wife, though still sleeping in separate beds, were shown to actually have a physical relationship, and Mary Tyler Moore was even shown wearing Capri pants, unheard of at the time. But the quintessential example of the innovations offered by The Dick Van Dyke Show occurred when, after the network rejected the script, only an appeal from Sheldon Leonard himself secured permission to film the episode "That's My Boy??" In this episode, Rob (Van Dyke) is convinced that the baby he and Laura brought home from the hospital was not theirs, but a baby belonging to another couple, the Peters. Constant mix-ups with flowers and candy at the hospital, caused by the similarity in names (Petrie and Peters), convinced Rob that the babies were somehow switched, and he decided to confront the Peters family. Only when the Peters show up at Rob and Laura's house does Rob learns that the Peters are African American. Some have speculated that the overwhelming positive reaction by audiences to this episode led Sheldon Leonard to eventually cast another future television megastar, Bill Cosby, in I Spy.

Dick Van Dyke won three Emmy Awards for his role in TDVDS, and the series received four Emmy Awards as outstanding comedy series. The series, which began in 1961, ended its network television run in 1966, although audiences have enjoyed the program through its extended life in syndication.

Although Dick Van Dyke went on to star in such feature films as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins and The Comic, he has continued to be a staple on network television with The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Van Dyke and Company (for which he received his fourth Emmy) and a critically-acclaimed and Emmy-nominated dramatic performance in the made-for-television movie The Morning After. In his fifth decade in television, Van Dyke has been seen in the 1990s prime time series Diagnosis Murder for CBS, in which he co-starred with his son Barry Van Dyke.

-Thomas A. Birk

DICK VAN DYKE. Born in West Plains, Missouri, U.S.A., 13 December 1925. Married: Marjorie Willett, 1948; three daughters and two sons. Served in U.S. Army Air Corps, during World War II. Founded advertising agency with Wayne Williams, Danville, Illinois, 1946; appeared with Phillip Erickson in pantomime act The Merry Mutes, Eric and Van, 1947-53; television master of ceremonies, The Music Shop, Atlanta; hosted television variety show The Dick Van Dyke Show, New Orleans; master of ceremonies, The Morning Show, CBS, 1955, and The Cartoon Show, 1956; hosted weekly television show Flair, ABC, 1960; performed on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie, 1960-61; starred in weekly television sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, CBS, 1961-66; performed in such films as Mary Poppins, 1965, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968; returned to television series format with Diagnosis: Murder, 1994; chair, Nick at Nite, since 1992. Recipient: Theater World Award, 1960; Antoinette Perry Award, 1961; four Emmy Awards.

TELEVISION SERIES

1955 The Morning Show
1956 Cartoon Show
1958-59 Mother's Day
1959 Laugh Lines
1960 Flair
1961-66 The Dick Van Dyke Show
1971-74 The New Dick Van Dyke Show
1976 Van Dyke and Company
1988 The Van Dyke Show
1994- Diagnosis: Murder

MADE-FOR-TELEVISION MOVIES

1974 The Morning After
1977 Tubby the Tuba (voice only)
1982 Drop-Out Father
1983 Found Money
1987 Ghost of a Chance

FILMS

Bye Bye Birdie, 1963; What a Way To Go, 1964; Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN, 1965; Mary Poppins, 1965; Divorce American Style, 1967; Never a Dull Moment, 1967; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968; The Comic, 1969; Some Kind of Nut, 1969; Cold Turkey, 1971; The Runner Stumbles, 1979; Drop-Out Father, 1982; Dick Tracy, 1990; Freddie Goes to Washington (voice only), 1992.

STAGE

The Girls Against the Boys, 1959; Bye Bye Birdie, 1960-61.

PUBLICATIONS

Faith, Hope, and Hilarity. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Karlen, Neal. "A Familiar Face Introduces himself to a New Generation" (interview). The New York Times, 21 October 1992.