My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [43]
Julie and I both loved performing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” How could you feel otherwise? The Sherman brothers said that extraordinary word stemmed from their plays with double-talk. It also had the catchy bounce of an old English musical number. It made the kid in me smile the first time I heard it, and it has continued to make kids everywhere smile.
Oddly, I don’t have anything to do with my favorite song in the movie, “The Perfect Nanny,” which is the advertisement that the two Banks children, Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber), have composed and then sing to their mother and father, who are looking for a new nanny after the old one has taken flight. Something about their high-pitched English voices hit me every time, probably the same way that Walt got emotional every time he heard “Feed the Birds.”
The music—as good music always does—opened the door in our souls to something deep and lasting. For Walt, it was sentimentalism. For me, it was childhood innocence.
We had been rehearsing the dance numbers for several weeks when I asked Walt if I could take on a second role, that of the elderly banker Mr. Dawes. I loved portraying old men, and since first reading the script, I had been secretly eyeing that part, which included the song “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.” I saw a lot of potential for extracurricular amusement.
So one day early in production I asked Walt for a moment of his time and made my pitch. I even offered to do the extra work for free.
He studied me with an expression that conveyed uncertainty—not what I expected.
“You’ll have to test,” he said finally.
Even though I had hoped to hear a different response, I was no less enthusiastic about the opportunity to have some additional fun. Just getting made up for the test as a balding old man in his nineties made my day, and by the time the last wisps of white hair and beard were added to my face I was stooped over, talking like the very senior banker, and having a blast amusing both the crew and myself. For the test itself, I stood in front of the Bankses’ house and ad-libbed a few lines, excusing myself every few minutes to pee in the bushes.
“I’m a weak old man because of a hernia,” I explained in a wheezy voice, and while uttering those words, I teetered on the edge of the curb as if it were a perilous drop down the face of a cliff. The crew ate it up.
So did Walt.
Not only did he agree to let me play the old banker, but he also found my teetering so amusing he ordered a six-inch-high step built inside the bank’s door to let me reprise my gimmick. But Walt, on top of all his other attributes, was a shrewd horse trader, and he refused to simply indulge my desire to play this little part without getting a little something out of it.
He made it contingent on me donating four thousand dollars to the three-year-old art school he had founded, California Institute of the Arts. In other words, I ended up paying him a not insignificant amount of money to play a part I had offered to do for free. I still scratch my head at that one.
But it was worth every dollar. I would have, in fact, paid even more.
While we were in production, I knew the movie was special. All of us did. It was apparent from the start and more so through numerous test screenings. The movie finally opened at the end of August 1964 with a star-studded premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. At the end, there was a standing ovation that filled the enormous theater, and later the New York Times would call it a “most wonderful, cheering movie” and “irresistible.”
Certainly those at the premiere felt that way. At the after-party, silent-film star Francis X. Bushman took hold of my hand and said, “Sir, you are a national treasure.” Maurice Chevalier introduced himself and said