Of the roughly seven billion people on this planet we call home, it’s hard to visualize anybody who’s aged as gracefully as the one and only Dick Van Dyke. From the chipper smile, to his astounding ability to effortlessly clean up in a suit, to his concise articulation, and now to an Emmy win this late in his career, Van Dyke is the artistic gift that keeps on giving.
For those of you not in the know, the special sauce of impeccable aging comes directly from a great attitude, and Van Dyke has buckets full of such a thing. When asked by The Hollywood Reporter how he wants to be remembered following his win at the 51st Daytime Emmy Awards earlier this year, Van Dyke gave a pristinely Van Dyke-coded answer.
You heard that right, this diamond of a performer wants to be remembered “for making people laugh for 75 years, I’ve been in the business for 75 years, I can’t believe it that I’m still here and performing!”
The actor would go on to cheekily point out that he’s currently looking for work if anybody was interested in his services. More importantly, though, let’s all agree to pretend that he never made that “I can’t believe it” comment, because he might have just jinxed something and we need to protect this man at all costs. Mandela effect, do your stuff!
But just how much of this luminary’s entire life do those 75 years make up?
How old is Dick Van Dyke?
Dick Van Dyke clocks in at a whopping 98 years of age, with 99 just on the horizon per his birthday on December 13. And now, as the oldest-ever Emmy nominee and now winner as of the 51st Daytime Emmys (to say nothing of the illustrious career that led up to this moment), one can only imagine the applause that will be sent his way once he rolls up as a presenter for the Primetime Awards.
Van Dyke won his Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Emmy for his appearance on Days of Our Lives, wherein he portrayed one Timothy Robicheaux, the father of John Black. Days of Our Lives, of course, has been running for 14,430 episodes and counting, with the soap opera having first premiered in 1965 and currently scheduled to run until September 2025 (around which time it will probably be renewed again). How appropriate, then, that a show spanning an unprecedented number of decades was the site of Van Dyke’s historic Emmy win.
His Outstanding Guest Performer win is his sixth Emmy win overall. The year 1984 saw him win Outstanding Performer in Children’s Programming for his appearance on CBS Library: The Wrong Way Kid, while three consecutive Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy series found their way into his hands from 1964 to 1966, all them for The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Among Van Dyke’s other honors include a 1965 Grammy Award win for Best Children’s Album thanks to his work on the film Mary Poppins, a 1961 Tony Award win for Best Featured Actor in a Musical via Bye Bye Birdie, a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Screen Actors Guild in 2013, and being named a Disney Legend back in 1998 for his impact on all things Disney.
But we now know his most important honor is the privilege of having made people laugh for an entire lifetime, a privilege we can only hope he gets to keep indulging as remarkably as he’s done for so long.