Newsletter – February 7, 2025
Photo: Vera Anderson/WireImage via Getty Images
One of my favorite celebrity encounters was with Dick Van Dyke, and he didn’t even hear how it turned out.
From Mary Poppins to “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and so much more, I wanted to grow up to be him. Okay, I still do. Do you know he’ll be turning 100 this year?! What a treasure.
This story goes back to when I was in my twenties and living in Los Angeles. My grandparents had moved to Phoenix for retirement and I visited them several times a year. Van Dyke also lived in Phoenix and I happened to see him at the airport.
I would’ve loved nothing more than to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I wanted to emulate his career, but he was in a deep discussion with a woman wearing an airline uniform and I didn’t want to interrupt.
The middle-aged woman waiting for a plane with her husband had no such compunctions. She saw Van Dyke and leaped from her seat to approach him.
“George!” she cried happily, waving as she stopped the conversation. (The name wasn’t actually “George,” but it sure wasn’t “Dick.”)
Van Dyke looked up at the woman as she marched up to him enthusiastically.
“George, it’s me, Marge!” She got a blank look from Van Dyke.
“Remember, when we worked together at Acme?” (It wasn’t Acme, either.) Van Dyke shook his head with a bemused smile on his face.
“Oh, sure you do, George. Remember how we used to tease you about how much you looked like Dick Van…”
Here, she trailed off as realization set in.
“Oh, you’re not George!”
Van Dyke admitted that he wasn’t and she turned tail in embarrassment, returning to her seat across from me. Her husband was reading a magazine and had missed the whole thing.
She yanked on his sleeve and asked him if he remembered George from Acme. He did and she pointed across the waiting area. “Look!”
“Is that him?” he asked, mildly interested.
“No,” she exploded with enthusiasm, “that’s Dick Van Dyke!”
It took everything I had not to burst out laughing at the confusion on the man’s face!
I so wish I could tell that story to Dick Van Dyke in person, because he never heard the final tag of the story. I think we would both have a good laugh.
Happy 100th, Dick!
TTFN
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Eric Margerum 