My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [55]
We added to the fun with a cast and crew party afterward. As hard as we tried to celebrate five special years of accomplishment, camaraderie, creativity, friendship, and laughs, it was also a night of good-byes, which made it a bittersweet occasion. I got in the car at the end of the night, turned to Margie thinking I had something to say about the party, and nothing came out of my mouth. I was overwhelmed.
I learned that you may move on from a show like ours, but you never move away from it. At the end of May 1966, we staged a mini reunion when the show walked away with four Emmys. The New York Times called it “a hail and farewell gesture” by our peers since we were going off the air. Indeed, almost everyone on the show had been nominated. We were genuinely touched.
I arrived at the awards show thinking Don Adams was a shoe-in for his new series Get Smart, and so I was genuinely caught off-guard when my name was called for the third straight year. In my thank-you speech, I joked that I wouldn’t be there next year, so the category was going to have a fresh face. I added a heartfelt thank-you, which I hoped conveyed my gratitude not just for the individual honor but also for the honor of being there.
And it was quite a club. That night, Bill Cosby, one of Emmy’s cohosts, also won an Emmy for his work opposite Robert Culp on I Spy. The first black actor to costar in a weekly prime-time TV series, he thanked NBC for “having the guts” to go with him. It wasn’t just NBC, though. It was also Sheldon Leonard, I Spy’s executive producer, who had put Bill in that role and who had, at another point in time, fought to keep The Dick Van Dyke Show on the air.
When you’re watching award shows you sometimes wonder what the men and women in their tuxedos and gowns are thinking about while all the nominees are being called and winners announced. On that occasion, I was thinking about the connections many of us shared as we strove to entertain and inform people, and occasionally make points about the quality and condition of our lives, and I felt pretty darn lucky to be among them.
I was also thinking that I was on to the next phase of my life and career, some of which was planned, but most of which was a mystery, the way it always is, and I was looking forward to seeing what would happen.
PART TWO
I’ve made peace with insecurity … because there is no security of any kind.
—Me
17
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
Destiny is an interesting idea to ponder. Somehow, when Carl was looking to cast the lead role in his new television series, I was in the exact right place at the exact right time and answered the call. However, such was not the case one day in 1966, a day that, had I answered in another way, could’ve made me far wealthier than I ever imagined.
I was in the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen Bug parked in front of a McDonald’s, biding my time on the set of the movie Divorce American Style while the crew completed a routine recalibration of equipment and director Bud Yorkin conferred with my costar Debbie Reynolds. A man sidled up to my little car, introduced himself, and asked if I lived in Phoenix.
“I don’t exactly live there,” I said. “But I own a ranch outside of town. We’re there a lot on weekends.”
He then explained that he was with McDonald’s and they were selling franchises in and around Phoenix for twenty-five thousand dollars for each restaurant. McDonald’s wasn’t exactly unknown. At the time, there were about five hundred places fronted by golden arches across the country, boasting sales of one hundred million hamburgers. But I thought twenty-five grand for a burger joint was steep. So I passed.
Fortunately, I had better judgment with Hollywood than hamburgers. Case in point: Divorce American Style. It was a sprawling, topical comedy