My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [45]
Although rush hour, I stepped out of the car—and that’s when the real problems started. As I waved at cars to stop so I could push my Jag across the lanes to the side, people began to recognize me. Not only did cars stop, but a few got out and asked for autographs as well. A producer named Tom Naud appeared from out of nowhere and handed me a script, explaining that he had been trying to get it to me and wasn’t this a lucky break.
For everyone but me. Two cops showed up to assist me and both turned out to be amateur dancers who couldn’t wait to show me a few steps. A former vaudeville performer ran the garage where I was towed, and he dusted off his old act as I waited for one of his servicemen to examine the car. Despite hours of inconvenience, it turned out to be an interesting morning.
In early 1964, we purchased a thirty-five-year-old California-style ranch home in Encino. The family home, with property that included a swimming pool and majestic old oak trees, satisfied my craving for normalcy. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much the cat loved hiding out in the oak trees and then terrorizing our dogs by jumping down onto their backs.) I decorated my office with my first Emmy, which I won that May, and Margie continued doing a terrific job keeping the kids grounded and on track.
She had no fondness for show business. She appreciated Hollywood, but was not drawn to it. I knew events like the Emmys were hard on her. She was, as with many spouses, constantly shunted to the side by people wanting to chat with me or by reporters who stepped between us even if we were mid-conversation. She was earthy and artistic, with an array of interests. She wore her hair short and eschewed makeup. We were often mistaken as brother and sister since many people thought of me as being with Mary.
She came to tapings every so often but otherwise felt no need to go every week. As she frequently said with a laugh, I was pretty much the same there as I was at home. Once, when I was on the cover of a magazine, she went to the grocery store and bought six copies. The woman ringing her up at the counter said she must know someone in the magazine.
Margie said, yes, she did. “Dick Van Dyke.”
“Isn’t that wonderful.” The woman grinned. “Are you his mother?”
So Margie’s attitude to the glitz and glamour was a simple “no, thank you.” I wasn’t much better. Among those in Hollywood, I was regarded as a square—a funny square, but a square nonetheless. I preferred to think of myself as grounded, sensible, and an everyman who hadn’t lost touch with the small town, mid-American values that I’d learned in childhood.
I took pride when Mary told a reporter that I was “the nicest actor” she had ever met. “Even-tempered, considerate, almost saintlike.” Hardly saintlike. In a story I wrote for U.P.I., I painted a pretty normal, if not boring, picture of myself, explaining that I “spent most of my spare time with my family. We don’t go to big Hollywood parties, and we don’t give them, either.”
If that made me a square, so be it. “I take that as a compliment,” I wrote.
I was concerned about doing a good job as a husband, father, and human being. As far as I was concerned, children learned right and wrong and how to behave more from watching their parents than from anything they were told, and I wanted to be a good role model at home. I spent weekends with the family. I surfed with the boys in Malibu. I played music and sang with the girls. I led family sing-alongs, and play-alongs for that matter, as everyone seemed to be involved in learning an instrument.
Every Sunday, we attended the Brentwood Presbyterian Church. I didn’t teach Sunday school as I had in New York, but I spoke to the congregation on occasion. My brief interest in becoming a minister was far behind me, but I was intensely curious