Comedy icon Dick van Dyke celebrates turning 100: “I still try to dance”

Actor and comedic icon Dick Van Dyke is 100 years young today.

The famed star sang and danced his way into America’s heart through his illustrious career that has spanned nearly eight decades.

As part of the celebration this weekend, theaters across the country are showing a new documentary about his life, “Dick Van Dyke: 100th Celebration.”

Van Dyke’s work helped define a generation. He became one of the biggest actors of his era with the eponymous show “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran for five years on CBS.

Early in his career, Van Dyke was quoted as saying he wanted to make films his children could watch. And he got his dream when Walt Disney cast him in “Mary Poppins” – bad cockney accent and all – alongside the incomparable Julie Andrews. He also appeared in the equally kid-friendly “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

“Yeah, I could have been James Bond. When Sean Connery left, the producer said, ‘Would you like to be the next Bond?’ I said, ‘Have you heard my British accent?’ Click! That’s a true story!” Van Dyke told CBS Sunday Morning in 2023.

During his career, Van Dyke won four Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award and a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995.

Just last year, he became the oldest winner of a Daytime Emmy, for a guest role on the soap “Days of Our Lives.”

 “I’ll be darned. I think I’m the last of my generation. I’m 98. I have — almost — all my marbles. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast,” he told Entertainment Tonight before his win.

Van Dyke, who is just an Oscar shy of the elusive EGOT title, said he would love a shot at the Academy Award.

“I hope it’s not posthumous,” he joked.

In the 1970s, Van Dyke found sobriety after battling alcoholism.

“I’m on my third generation,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2023. “I’m getting letters from little kids, and that is what I love, that they watch the movies over and over. I’m getting so much more mail today than I did during the heyday of my career.”

Now that he has hit triple digits, Van Dyke said he’s gotten some perspective on how he used to play older characters.

“You know, I played old men a lot, and I always played them as angry and cantankerous,” he told ABC News ahead of his milestone birthday. “It’s not really that way. I don’t know any other 100-year-olds, but I can speak for myself.”

He has long credited his wife, 54-year-old makeup artist and producer Arlene Silver, with keeping him young.

“As I’ve said, if I had known I was gonna live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself!” Van Dyke told CBS Sunday Morning. “Yeah, ’cause I went through that whole period of alcoholism. But my wife, God bless her, makes sure that I go to the gym three days a week and do a full workout.”

Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, in 1925, and grew up “the class clown” in Danville, Illinois, while admiring and imitating the silent film comedians.

Five years ago, while celebrating getting a Kennedy Center Honor, Van Dyke told CBS Mornings that he was looking forward to hitting the 100-year-old mark.

“George Burns made it, and I’m gonna do it too,” he said.

And now, he told ABC News that he feels lucky about turning 100. But what’s hard about being 100?

“I miss movement,” he told the outlet. “I’ve got one game leg from I don’t know what.”

“I still try to dance,” he said with a laugh.