Inside Dick Van Dyke’s health challenges as he…
Dick Van Dyke just turned 100 — and he’s still stealing the show.
The legendary song-and-dance man formally grew to become a centenarian on Dec. 13, a uncommon feat for a star whose profession has delighted followers on the big and small screens for more than seven many years.
“The funniest thing is, it’s not enough. A hundred years is not enough,” Van Dyke said in an interview with ABC News that aired forward of his milestone birthday. “You wanna live more, which I plan to.”
Dick Van Dyke was born on December 13, 1925, in West Plains, Missouri. Getty Images
It’s simple to see why. Despite far outliving the 58-year life expectancy for an American born in 1925, the legendary entertainer says he doesn’t have any aches or pain.
“I’m so lucky,” Van Dyke said, noting that he still hits the fitness center three days a week. “I think that saved me from the pain.”
Still, the street to 100 wasn’t always easy. The “Mary Poppins” star confronted his share of health challenges before reaching the century mark. Here’s a look back at the obstacles Van Dyke overcame to hit triple digits.
Overcoming alcoholism
While not widely identified, Van Dyke has been open about his past wrestle with alcoholism, which he described as a “physical disease” during a 1974 look on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
“It has nothing to do with the person not being mature enough not to drink too much,” he said at the time. “It’s a true addiction, like a heroin addiction.”
Van Dyke shot to stardom in the early Nineteen Sixties with a string of memorable performances, including his iconic function as the lovable chimney sweep Bert in “Mary Poppins.” Michael Ochs Archives
Van Dyke told Oprah Winfrey in 2016 that he turned to alcohol as a manner to carry himself out of his shell.
“I was very shy – with strangers – I couldn’t talk to people,” he explained. “And I found if I had a drink, it would loosen me up. The barriers went down, and I became very social.”
The “Bye Bye Birdie” actor has been sober since checking into a hospital for three weeks in 1972 — and says he doesn’t miss alcohol in the slightest.
“I like life too much without it,” he told Today in 2024. “Now that I’m completely free of it, I don’t have any desire to ever drink again.”
Kicking cigarettes
liquorism wasn’t the only vice Van Dyke conquered.
In fact, the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” frontman admitted that quitting smoking was “twice as hard.”
“It was much worse than the alcohol,” he said on the “Really No Really” podcast in 2023, including that it took him “forever” to give up.
“I’m still chewing the nicotine gum. It’s been 15 years, I think,” Van Dyke famous.
Defying arthritis
While Van Dyke is still dancing at 100, medical doctors didn’t always assume he could be.
Back in his 40s, a doctor told him his physique was “riddled with arthritis” during a routine examination.
Van Dyke credit overcoming alcoholism and a smoking habit as key elements in his longevity. CBS via Getty Images
“He predicted I’d probably be on a walker or wheelchair within, I think he said, five to seven years,” Van Dyke said during a 2015 look on Diane Rehm’s show “On My Mind.”
But somewhat than slowing down, the “Diagnosis: unlawful killing” actor took issues into his own fingers, beginning an exercise routine he credit with retaining him cellular and energetic to this day.
“I have all the infirmatives that go along with my age, arthritis and all those things, but I’ve found that movement, also mental movement, is important,” he told Rehm.
Tacking mysterious complications
In his late 80s, Van Dyke confronted yet another problem: a medical thriller.
In 2013, the entertainer was compelled to cancel a public look at the 92nd Street Y, with his reps citing “fatigue and lack of sleep due to symptoms of a yet-to-be diagnosed neurological disorder.”
Van Dyke turned to social media for help posting: “My head bangs every time I lay down. I’ve had every test come back that I’m perfectly healthy. Anybody got any ideas?”
“It has been going on for 7 years,” he added. “I’ve had every test you can think of, including an MRI and spinal tap.”
A few weeks later, Van Dyke returned to X with an update: “It seems that titanium dental implants are the cause of my head pounding.”
Facing age-related decline
In current years, Van Dyke admits he’s confronted a number of age-related health challenges.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” he wrote in an essay printed in The Times on Nov. 13.
At 100, Van Dyke continues to sing, dance and appeal followers around the globe. Disney
“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. Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house,” Van Dyke continued.
Much of this is due to the “physical deterioration” he’s skilled, which he says mirrors the growing older characters he once portrayed.
“Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer. I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible,” Van Dyke wrote.
“I’m not a ‘wake up and go back to bed’ type just yet, unless it’s cold and rainy,” he added. “If I miss too many gym days, I really can feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there. If I let that set in, well, God help me.”
The “Night at the Museum” star also revealed his imaginative and prescient and listening to have taken a hit.
“My sight is so bad now that origami is out of the question,” Van Dyke joked, including that he struggles with “following group conversations” and often finds himself complaining about his listening to aids.
“But the superficial stuff, the physical decay, is about the only thing I share with the old guys I played way back when,” he reassured followers. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”
In addition to staying energetic in his golden years, Van Dyke credit his much-younger spouse, Arlene Silver, 54, with serving to him keep youthful.
“Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch,” he wrote.
“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.”
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