I have also heard and read various accounts of why they [Sheldon Leonard and Carl Reiner] liked me. My favorites? I wasn't too good-looking, I walked a little funny, and I was basically kind of average and ordinary. I guess my lack of perfection turned out to be a winning hand. Let that be a lesson for future generations.
Dick Van DykeSo at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did - played records.
Dick Van DykeWe had all week to rehearse. An audience would come in at the end of the week and we'd our little show. Most of the ad- libbing happened during the week on the show.
Dick Van DykeLongevity in my family's been pretty good. And my grandparents were pretty spry at their age, so I figured I'd probably stay skinny and fairly agile. I used to do old men all the time in sketches. And there used to be an organization called the Gray Panthers. And they would send me, oh, terrible letters about making fun of old people. And I would just always say, "I'm playing the old person I intend to become!"
Dick Van DykeWhen I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me.
Dick Van Dyke