My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [36]
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