My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir

I have enjoyed Dick Van Dyke's work since I was a child, especially "The Dick Van Dyke Show." I have the whole series on DVD and recently finished re-watching the entire series on Amazon Prime. Shortly afterward, I saw this Kindle book's price had dropped, so I took advantage of it. I found the book very interesting and read it quickly. Being a Midwesterner myself, I always remembered that Dick hailed from Danville, Illinois, but there was much I never knew about his personal life or his professional life prior to the series that launched his stardom. I loved reading about his experiences on the show and his thoughts about his co-stars. However, as some other reviewers have noted, some things were lacking regarding his personal life. For example, I would have liked to know more about his parents. His descriptions, especially of his mother, are quite sketchy. I also would have liked to know more about his first wife. He drops tidbits about her here and there, but I never felt like I got a full picture of her. He is more descriptive of his second -- well, not wife, because she would never get around to actually marrying him -- live-in, but I suppose it's natural that he would focus more on the woman he was with at the time.I found this memoir insightful, but often the insights I gleaned were unintentional ones because Dick seems to lack the inclination toward introspection. For example, Dick says that he and Margie (his wife) never drank alcohol before coming to Hollywood. But gradually, they both started drinking socially and drank to the point that both became alcoholics requiring treatment. However, Dick never bothers to analyze why he began drinking in the first place -- caving to social pressure? -- and why the drinking became a crutch for him. Was it the pressures of his career? Difficulties at home? Feelings of insecurity? We don't know because Dick either isn't curious himself or doesn't wish to reveal it. He talks about his smoking addiction and describes several fruitless attempts to quit. He basically says that he *couldn't* quit. However, when an X-ray revealed a potential health problem, he quit immediately and never smoked again. What this revealed is that he had the capacity to quit all along, but he didn't have sufficient motivation to quit until the X-ray. Once he wanted to quit more than he wanted to smoke, he succeeded. But I don't think he quite grasped that himself.Dick says he is really a lot like Rob Petrie -- or rather, the reverse. The writers used Dick's personality to develop the character of Rob. Dick said that, like Rob, he is very non-confrontational and is a people pleaser. He said that Rose Marie dubbed him the "six-foot tower of Jello." I find it interesting, therefore, that he describes the two women in his life, Margie and Michelle, as strong women. It has been my observation that non-aggressive and compliant men often gravitate to strong (sometimes domineering) women. Ironically, it would appear that Margie's strong personality worked against her in the end. She did not like the Hollywood culture, making no bones about it, and therefore did not take as active an interest in Dick's career as he would have liked. He became involved with another strong women who relished Hollywood and everything about it. So Dick was drawn away to someone who took a more active interest in his career and wanted to participate in that aspect of his life. It would seem that Dick's amenable personality led him to gradually be drawn into an adulterous relationship until he reached the point where he felt there was no turning back and wanted to divorce Margie. Though Dick's memoir never really allowed me to make an emotional connection to Margie, I couldn't help but feel sorry for this woman who had been married to Dick since he was a nobody and bore him several children, only to be discarded when another woman came onto the scene who, perhaps, took advantage of a famous man going through a mid-life crisis. Although Dick thought Michelle was wonderful, I just don't come away with the same impression. YMMV.Throughout the book, Dick stresses his desire to live up to his mother's admonition to be a good and decent person. I think in most ways he did achieve that. But he never really acknowledged how his alcoholism and marital infidelity played into that. Also, Dick talks about being a church goer for much of his life, and not only that but also a Sunday school teacher and an elder in the Presbyterian church. However, it's clear that Dick never had a true understanding of what Christianity actually is. The gospel seems to have eluded him. Instead of realizing that the Christian faith is centered on repenting of sin and accepting the sacrifice Christ made on the cross, Dick still focuses on being a good person as his means of salvation -- that is, being good enough for God rather than realizing nobody is good enough, which is why we need God's forgiveness and grace. This explains why he fell away from the church. When an issue came up within his church that revealed a very un-Christian attitude by those in authority, he decided the church was the problem instead of those particular people. It didn't seem to occur to him to look for another church that had a more Christ-like attitude toward all people. Instead, he became disillusioned and dropped out. Very sad.Dick Van Dyke is an immensely talented actor who continues to give me and countless others great enjoyment through his work. At his core, he is a man with solid Midwestern values who, in some ways, was led astray by the Hollywood culture. He displays a lack of self-awareness in some areas of his life, but he comes across as genuine and likeable, just as he does on screen. His memoir is not the best of its genre, but it is generally a fun and interesting read, and I'm sure most fans will find it worthwhile.

I have always been a fan, and I am no less of one now. It feels much like a biography though, like it was written from a third person POV in places. He appears to be happy, and I am happy for him.

Dick Van Dyke's memoir, written now that he's "circling the drain," as he puts it, but still in possession of all his faculties, is a smoothly-written account of his life and sixty-plus-year career in show business: a happy childhood in Danville, Illinois, with his younger brother Jerry, his stint in Special Services during World War II, his marriage and family life, and the innumerable show business jobs he had across the country before finally hitting it big with the musical Bye Bye Birdie and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Other shows and movies followed: Mary Poppins, The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Van Dyke and Company, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and of course Diagnosis Murder (which my husband and I have always called Diagnosis Van Dyke). At 85 Van Dyke is still busy--with volunteer work, his singing group, a nascent one-man play, and with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.Early in his career, Van Dyke decided he wanted to specialize in family entertainment. Defining himself clearly would help his career in the long run, he thought, and he wanted to make movies that he could comfortably take his children to see. The book is comparable in tone to the on-screen entertainment that Van Dyke built his career on. He touches on the dark episodes of his life--alcoholism and his addiction to smoking, a mid-life crisis, the end of his marriage, deaths of friends and family--but it is by no means a negative read. Nor is it at all salacious or mean.Scattered throughout the book are interesting bits of behind-the-scenes information: that Carl Reiner, the genius behind The Dick Van Dyke Show, kept political references and slang out of his scripts with a view to making the show timeless; that Van Dyke had to donate $4000 to an art school Walt Disney had founded before he was allowed to play the ancient banker in Mary Poppins (a role for which he wasn't compensated!); that P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, wanted Disney to remove all the animation from the movie. (Happily, Walt Disney overruled her, and created a masterpiece from what I think was a mediocre book.) Van Dyke also mentions his dissatisfaction with some aspects of the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in particular the movie's director:"Soon after I heard him swear in front of the children one too many times, and I finally had words with him. Above all else, it showed that he had no feel for the family-oriented material. As for the material in general, let's just say that enough scenes were done on the fly or redone at the last minute that I lost faith that the version that finally showed up in theaters would match anyone's expectations, and I think I was right."Van Dyke writes that he and Rob Petrie (his character on The Dick Van Dyke Show) are basically the same person: they're both affable, slightly clumsy family guys. He certainly comes off as a nice guy in the book, someone who has lived a joy-filled life for the most part, and who is happiest when he's making people laugh.-- Debra Hamel

I adore this actor! He is such a great comedian, actor and dancer. All of our family members loved his movies. We went to all of them. This was in the days before TV was putting re-runs of family movies on during certain holidays. Thiis biography talks about all of his movies,his favorite TV roles and the fact that he suffered from severe depression. He also lacked self-confidence as a result of a rather unhappy home life. It was an iteresting read,

As Dick himself says, if you are looking for a 'my terrible childhood' story this isn't for you. Whilst he is honest about his alcohol consumption and personal life, this is more about his work, with little tales and tit bits about his career. At first I struggled reading it as it is written as he speaks but I very soon got into this. I suspect Dick Van Dyke could write 20 books and still not tell everything and that is my only complaint, that I wanted more. I didn't want it to end. I read it in a couple of sittings which for me is very unusual. He comes across really well (something I was a little worried about as I love watching him) and it seemed a very honest account. Great read.

How could you not love Dick Van Dyke? Yes he's far from perfect what with the alcoholism and affairs but that's what makes him fascinating and he readily admits he's no saint. From Mary Poppins to Diagnosis Murder he's had a varied and long career and is still going strong at 92, a living legend by anyone's means and long may he continue. A great read!

Dick Van Dyke is a normal person rather than an egotistical celebrity. He writes with honesty and candour. Not one page of this book disappointed me. It was rewarding to spend some time in his virtual company.

Liked reading this autobiography and what Dick Van Dyke's life so far has been in film and dance also about his family who I watched in diagnosis murder and other mystery's also Mary Poppins which I enjoyed and chitty chitty bang bang

And I love this book. It's an honest, open account of the first portion of Dick's life. He opens up his life and his world and makes me love him even more because, even though a superstar, he is only too willing to let his audience know that he's human, like the rest of us. I'm now looking forward to reading 'Keep Moving', which I bought at the same time as this one.