How Dick Van Dyke conquered alcoholism and arthritis on his road to 100
Mary Poppins star Dick Van Dyke has faced his share of health challenges before reaching the century mark. Here are the obstacles he overcame to hit triple digits.
Dick Van Dyke just turned 100 — and he’s still stealing the show.
The legendary song-and-dance man officially became a centenarian on Dec. 13, a rare feat for a star whose career has delighted fans on the big and small screens for more than seven decades.
“The funniest thing is, it’s not enough. A hundred years is not enough,” Van Dyke said in an interview with ABC News that aired ahead of his milestone birthday. “You wanna live more, which I plan to.”
It’s easy to see why. Despite far outliving the 58-year life expectancy for an American born in 1925, the legendary entertainer says he doesn’t have any aches or pain.
“I’m so lucky,” Van Dyke said, noting that he still hits the gym three days a week. “I think that saved me from the pain.”
Still, the road to 100 wasn’t always smooth. The Mary Poppins star faced his share of health challenges before reaching the century mark. Here’s a look back at the obstacles Van Dyke overcame to hit triple digits.
While not widely known, Van Dyke has been open about his past struggle with alcoholism, which he described as a “physical disease” during a 1974 appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show.”
“It has nothing to do with the person not being mature enough not to drink too much,” he said at the time. “It’s a true addiction, like a heroin addiction.”
Van Dyke told Oprah Winfrey in 2016 that he turned to alcohol as a way to bring himself out of his shell.
“I was very shy – with strangers – I couldn’t talk to people,” he explained. “And I found if I had a drink, it would loosen me up. The barriers went down, and I became very social.”
The Bye Bye Birdie actor has been sober since checking into a hospital for three weeks in 1972 — and says he doesn’t miss alcohol in the slightest.
“I like life too much without it,” he told Today in 2024. “Now that I’m completely free of it, I don’t have any desire to ever drink again.”
Alcoholism wasn’t the only vice Van Dyke conquered.
In fact, the “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” frontman admitted that quitting smoking was “twice as hard.”
“It was much worse than the alcohol,” he said on the “Really No Really” podcast in 2023, adding that it took him “forever” to quit.
“I’m still chewing the nicotine gum. It’s been 15 years, I think,” Van Dyke noted.
While Van Dyke is still dancing at 100, doctors didn’t always think he would be.
Back in his 40s, a physician told him his body was “riddled with arthritis” during a routine exam.
“He predicted I’d probably be on a walker or wheelchair within, I think he said, five to seven years,” Van Dyke said during a 2015 appearance on Diane Rehm’s show “On My Mind.”
But rather than slowing down, the “Diagnosis: Murder” actor took matters into his own hands, starting an exercise regimen he credits with keeping him mobile and active to this day.
“I have all the infirmatives that go along with my age, arthritis and all those things, but I’ve found that movement, also mental movement, is important,” he told Rehm.
In his late 80s, Van Dyke faced yet another challenge: a medical mystery.
In 2013, the entertainer was forced to cancel a public appearance at the 92nd Street Y, with his reps citing “fatigue and lack of sleep due to symptoms of a yet-to-be diagnosed neurological disorder.”
Van Dyke turned to social media for help posting: “My head bangs every time I lay down. I’ve had every test come back that I’m perfectly healthy. Anybody got any ideas?”
“It has been going on for 7 years,” he added. “I’ve had every test you can think of, including an MRI and spinal tap.”
A few weeks later, Van Dyke returned to X with an update: “It seems that titanium dental implants are the cause of my head pounding.”
In recent years, Van Dyke admits he’s faced several age-related health challenges.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” he wrote in an essay published in The Times on Nov. 13.
“I get invites to events or offers for gigs in New York or Chicago, but that kind of travel takes so much out of me that I have to say no. Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house,” Van Dyke continued.
Much of this is due to the “physical deterioration” he’s experienced, which he says mirrors the ageing characters he once portrayed.
“Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer. I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible,” Van Dyke wrote.
“I’m not a ‘wake up and go back to bed’ type just yet, unless it’s cold and rainy,” he added. “If I miss too many gym days, I really can feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there. If I let that set in, well, God help me.”
The “Night at the Museum” star also revealed his vision and hearing have taken a hit.
“My sight is so bad now that origami is out of the question,” Van Dyke joked, adding that he struggles with “following group conversations” and often finds himself complaining about his hearing aids.
“But the superficial stuff, the physical decay, is about the only thing I share with the old guys I played way back when,” he reassured fans. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”
In addition to staying active in his golden years, Van Dyke credits his much-younger wife, Arlene Silver, 54, with helping him stay youthful.
“Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch,” he wrote.
“Arlene is half my age, and she makes me feel somewhere between two thirds and three quarters my age, which is still saying a lot. Every day she finds a new way to keep me up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed.”
Do you and your dog both need the dentist? Go see Peter
