One of my favorite performers, Dick Van Dyke, is doing a stage show — a musical autobiography. He's debuting it December 8 through January 16 at the Geffen Playhouse here in Los Angeles and I guess if audiences like it and he likes doing it, he'll do it in other cities. I'm going.
I don't think I ever told this story here but one day I was over at NBC Burbank and I realized I was about to get into an elevator with Dick Van Dyke. This would have been around 1981 or so and I can still remember the whirring noise of my mind racing to think of an appropriate thing to say to him. I knew it would have to be short — the building was only three stories — so I laid mental rubber and came up with: "Mr. Van Dyke, I know you've probably heard this a thousand times but I became a comedy writer because of The Dick Van Dyke Show. I thought it would be great to spend my life hanging out with Buddy and Sally, tripping over footstools and sleeping with women who looked like Mary Tyler Moore." That was somewhat true and I thought he'd be flattered and it didn't sound, at least in my head at that second, too gushy. If I'd had thirty minutes or even thirty more seconds, I might have come up with something better but that's what I instantly decided I was going to say to Dick Van Dyke.
We got into the elevator. He punched "3." I was going to "2" but I didn't push that button, the better to prolong the encounter. As soon as the doors closed, I turned to him and said, "Mr. Van Dyke, I know you've probably heard this a thousand times but I became —"
I got about that far before he put a friendly hand on my shoulder and said, "You became a comedy writer because you wanted to work all day with Buddy and Sally, trip over footstools and sleep with women like Mary Tyler Moore." He looked with amusement at whatever expression I had on my face and added, "And it's a lot more than a thousand times."
In case it doesn't come across that way in my telling, his tone was so friendly and delighted that I just wanted to grab the guy and hug him. Well, I wanted to grab the guy and hug him before that but he could not have been nicer. And then with that perfect timing that made him Dick Van Dyke, the elevator doors opened and he shook my hand, stepped off and left me there to head downward just as my appreciation of him was going up, up, up.
That was not the first time I'd spoken to him. The first time was when I attended a filming of The Dick Van Dyke Show in early 1965 when I was just shy of thirteen years old. I wrote about it in this article and as I reread it now, I see that I inexplicably left out the fact that Mr. Van Dyke and I had a brief conversation that evening. He was on the stage during a lull in filming. I was in the first row of the bleachers when he asked idly if there were any Laurel and Hardy fans in the house. There were quite a number but he was most pleased to see the young kid put up his hand and he asked me what my favorite film was. I rattled off about ten titles, the better to impress him that I really was not just a Laurel and Hardy fan but an expert. I still have a tendency to overanswer questions like that. He chuckled and told me to keep watching them. I decided to keep watching him while I was at it.
Anyway, as you may have figured out by now, I really like Dick Van Dyke and I'm going to see him. I can't imagine how I won't enjoy the heck out of that evening.