Dick Van Dyke Says It Would Be ‘Funny’ If He Died Just Weeks Before His 100th Birthday
The countdown is on — we’re only two months and change away from December 13, 2025, the day Dick Van Dyke will turn 100 years old. He’ll just beat fellow funnyman Mel Brooks, who hits the century mark next June.
“Two months, two months,” he said recently at his annual charity event, per PEOPLE, before joking, “It’d be funny if I didn’t make it.”
“I brag sometimes about how I made it to a hundred, and the truth is, if I had known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself,” he said. “And it is frustrating because I don’t know what I did right. Other than her (referring to his wife, Arlene), I didn’t do anything right.”
This article not your thing? Try these...
Well, that’s not exactly true. At 99 years old, Van Dyke told Ted Danson earlier this year that he still hits the gym three times a week. Danson recalled going to the same gym, watching Van Dyke “literally dance” from weight machine to weight machine. “Finally, I talked to you about your exercise,” Danson said. “And you would come to the gym and work out for an hour, then you would go home, you would swim laps.”
In fact, Van Dyke made headlines last week when Rick Springfield ran into the 99-year-old pumping iron at the health club. “I thought I was doing well at 76, but Dick got up from the chest press machine and did a little dance step before I left!” posted the “Jessie’s Girl” singer. “Amazing!”
Van Dyke showed little sign of slowing down at his charity event, raising money for The Van Dyke Endowment of the Arts and the in-development Dick Van Dyke Museum. He led the crowd in a round of “Happy Birthday” for a six-year-old boy — only 94 years to go, Junior. He also sang a handful of his greatest hits, including “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins and the theme from The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Little-known fact: The instrumental theme song for Van Dyke’s titular show has lyrics, written by Morey Amsterdam, the comic actor who played human joke machine Buddy Sorrell. Ask nicely and Van Dyke will sing them for you.
Van Dyke became the oldest actor to collect a Daytime Emmy Award in June, winning for his performance on Days of Our Lives. At the press event after the ceremony, Van Dyke showed all signs of making it to 100 and beyond. “I’m looking for work if anybody has it,” he laughed.