Happy Birthday Dick VanDyke!!
To all us Disney
Fans Dick VanDyke is the lovable chimney sweep, Bert from Mary Poppins. He is a
great comedic actor/dancer who never considered himself a dancer.
As a young man
looking to make his way in acting Dick found himself in California. He decided
to look up his comic hero in the white pages in hopes of asking him for advice.
He was surprised to find that Stan Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy) was listed! He
quickly went over and knocked on Mr. Laurel’s door! Thus started a long
friendship where Mr. Laurel mentored the young Dick VanDyke. If you have watch
old Laurel and Hardy movies you can see Stan Laurel in Dick VanDyke’s mannerisms
at times.
Dick VanDyke wrote
the introduction to a wonderful biography titled, “Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy, An
Affectionate Biography by John McCabe. He tells about his time with Mr. Laurel
in the introduction.
Dick was chosen
for the lead role of Bye Bye Birdie after auditioning for a small role. In fact
a song was written just for him in the show. He was chosen because after
auditioning he was nervous and started adlibbing a little soft shoe dance. The
choreographer for the show saw his dance and jumped right up and said he had
the lead. When Dick told him he did not know how to dance he was told they
would teach him.
At the 2011 D23
Expo Dick VanDyke and the Vantastix were performing. (The Vantastix is an acapella
group that sings with Dick. They have released an album, Put On a Happy Face.) While
performing Dick shared how he got the part as Bert in Mary Poppins. Dick had
said in an interview he believed there should be more “family” entertainment
offered in the movies. He said that he was told Walt Disney had read the
interview and without ever seeing him perform decided he should be offered the
part.
While reading the
script for Mary Poppins Dick felt that he could do the part of the elder Mr.
Daws, the president of the bank. Walt Disney would not hear of it and refused
to even let him try out for the park. Dick got in full make up and came in and
tried out. Walt was so taken by his performance he gave him the job but said it
would have to be uncredited.
To learn a little
more about Dick VanDyke check out the WikiPedia page about him.
My
Christmas book, “An Angel Remembers 25 Voices of Christmas” is available!!
This is a collection of 26 short Christmas stories that
together bring the amazing events of Christ’s birth alive. It is my hope that
this will help encourage families to spend 10-15 minutes a day together during
the busy holiday season remembering the true reason for the season.
You can
find it for ALL eReader formats and PDF at:
For your
Nook the link is:
It is also
available at the iTunes book store and many other ebook seller sites.
The only
big site not carrying my book is Amazon.
You can
download a Kindle version from Smashwords.com
No comments:
Post a Comment