My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business_ A Memoir - Dick Van Dyke [68]
With Walt Disney. One time we were interviewed and the reporter asked about us being on opposite sides of the political fence. Walt said, “That has nothing to do with our friendship.” I always appreciated that.
Meeting Queen Elizabeth as Sean Connery looks on. The Queen said, “We enjoy your show very much.” (photo credit i1.8)
Sally Ann Howes and I take the kids for an unconventional ride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968. (photo credit i1.9)
With President Johnson, getting a proclamation for the Brotherhood of Christians and Jews.
At the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
An out-of-control moment with Carl Reiner, who was a guest on Van Dyke & Company, 1976. I was wearing my hair longer. Carl was wearing hair. (photo credit i1.10)
With another Emmy, this time for Van Dyke & Company, 1977.
With Mary Tyler Moore after I was honored for lifetime achievement at the American Comedy Awards, 1993.
Dick Martin, Dom DeLuise, me, Steve Lawrence, and Richard Crenna in my living room. Steve was the only good voice in the bunch.
My daughter Stacy and me on an episode of Diagnosis Murder, 1996. Michelle hated that moustache more than anything, but I thought it made me look like a doctor.
With Chita Rivera, 2006. I made several guest appearances in her Broadway show, Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, more than forty-five years after we appeared together in Bye Bye Birdie.
20
THE MORNING AFTER
Margie and I were vacationing in London when The New Dick Van Dyke Show debuted on September 18, 1971. I heard the reaction was positive. A few days after we returned, though, I was in the grocery store when a sweet-looking woman walked up to me and hit me with her purse.
“Excuse me!” I said, stepping back before she could do it again.
“How dare you leave that sweet Laura,” she said.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of hit I hoped for, but it told me that people watched. In fact, despite lukewarm reviews, including the New York Times, which said, “on the originality meter, it rated two, maybe two-and-a-half, coughs,” we were a Top 20 show. Of course, it helped to be in a Saturday-night lineup that included America’s number-one show, All in the Family, as well as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Sandy Duncan’s new series, Funny Face.
Carl wrote and directed the opening episode, but from then on it was always a struggle behind the scenes to fill the scripts with the requisite funny. Although it was never mentioned, all of us knew that in addition to battling for ratings, we were competing against the extraordinarily high expectations my previous show set. People like the woman in the grocery store saw more than just a new sitcom. We tried our best to deliver.
Hope was not used to working in front of an audience, and so on taping nights when the studio was packed with people who had driven in from Phoenix to see the show, she calmed her nerves with a little belt. That one drink made her happy enough to do the show.
Sometimes it made her even happier. We were doing a scene in an episode midway through that first season where I came home from work and found her already in bed. I changed clothes and walked around to get into my side of the bed. When I pulled back the covers, she was stark naked. The audience hooted and laughed, as did Hope, who thought she could make me crack. But I never went out of character even though I thought her prank was hilarious.
During the second season, Hope was involved with Frank Sinatra. One week he came out to visit her. He flew in on his Lear jet and set up camp in the little house that she rented. Hope invited a bunch of us over for dinner one night and Frank cooked. We went there after taping the show. Margie had come to the studio to drive there with me, and she was all excited about meeting Frank.
It was funny, because it wasn’t like she’d never met big stars before. We had attended every major awards show. I’d made movies with some pretty famous people. But as I’ve said before, my wife did not like Hollywood, its stars, or its emphasis