TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1963)

DICK VAN DYKE (Continued from page 52) Presbyterian Church — was about to lapse and there were only five days left for the Van Dykes and the town to raise the necessary sum. . . . "Five?" snorted Dick. "We'll do it in four!" Although Dick was born in West Plains, Missouri, his family moved to Danville when he was a mere tot. All his memories of childhood games and growing up are centered there: "I had dozens of places, dozens of people I wanted to see. When you're far away from the scenes you knew as a kid, you become afraid of losing them, of forgetting what you were like when you were starting to sprout. "One thing's for sure: As a kid, I never dreamed I'd ever get to be any great shakes in the world. But let me tell you, when I looked at that welcomehome parade with about 45,000 folks from the city and suburbs turning out to give me a hand . . . well, it moved me more than anything else I can remember in all my life! "Margie looked up at me and said, 'I do believe you're going to cry.' "Let's be honest — I did cry." Among the people Dick most wanted to see, aside from family, were Mary Miller, former head of the English Department and Dramatic Club of Danville High School and now head of dramatics at the Junior College, and Kathryn Randolph of the Red Mask Players: "These two women had the greatest influence on my career. They deserve my lifelong thanks. "Mrs. Miller was in charge of 'Kollege Kapers,' a show put on by the Danville Junior College in which I appeared. I was happy to see that my so-called success didn't impress her a bit! She still treated me with the same firm, matter-of-fact manner I remembered as one of her high-school students. It made me feel right at home, as though I'd never left town at all. "As for Kathryn Randolph, I can only say that, when I heard they were going to name the theater after her, it made me doubly anxious to hit the trail and raise as much money as possible." Dick's energy and the fervor of the Red Mask Players were contagious. Everywhere in Danville people talked of saving the option for the theater. By the time the big fund-raising show at the high school had ended, a total of $6500 had been collected — which meant the mortgage could be paid off at one clip and still leave a reserve in the bank for the group to draw on for future productions. Thus the first goal Dick had set for his visit home was achieved. There now remained the get-togethers with family and old friends, and revisiting the old memory-haunted places. One other performer who had made the big-time from Danville was Helen Morgan, and one of the first things Dick and Marjorie did was to make a pilgrimage to the Morgan home. "I felt my first letdown here," he reports wistfully. "It was a town landmark — and it had been torn down to make room for a supermarket." Dick has hopes that his kid brother, Jerry, now under contract to CBS-TV for a big series next year — and already hosting "Picture This," as Jack Benny's summer replacement — will be the next "Danville product" to get his name in lights. "There used to be a raft of cousins," Dick says, "but now the family is pretty well scattered over the country. We did get to see my grandmother, Mrs. Jennie Van Dyke, and a cousin — and, on Margie's side, her parents, the Willetts, and her grandmother, Mrs. Margaret Peterson. My parents are in Hollywood now and really having a ball. Pop's nickname used to be 'Cookie,' because he was a salesman with the Sunshine Biscuit Company. He's very much the hail-fellow-well-met type, and I guess that's where Jerry and I get our go-go-go." Dick and Marjorie walked out to Dick's old neighborhood. The two-story house on the old red-brick street hadn't changed ... at least, not in Dick's eyes: "I was dying to know who lives there now. But, between the crowds of fans that converged on us and the police who set up lines, I decided to leave it for another time. "I got a real pang, smack in the middle of my heart, when I recalled the old arbor in the back yard and the big purple grapes that grew there. I used to practice my magic in that yard, and I remembered how the kid next door and I joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians, at the age of twelve, and put on shows for Kiwanis and other service clubs." Those were the days . . . Dick gave up magic while still in his teens and went into radio as a part-time announcer with Station WDAN. "It's moved from the old spot," he comments thoughtfully. "Now it has TV, and so it had to have a larger studio." Among his teen jobs, Dick also recalls working for Meise Bros, department store, in the shoe department. He was only fourteen — "but I was pretty fair at selling; at least, no woman ever came back to rap me on the noggin with her purchase." Perhaps the most fun was barging in on Carson's Drug Store, where he and Marjorie used to sip sodas while holding hands. Now they were accompanied by Police Lieut. Robert C. Congleton — who used to jerk sodas at the store in the old days. "His nickname was 'Hezzie' and he'd whip us up olive and crushed-walnut sandwiches, with 'double-downs' to go with them. "What's a 'double-down'? Picture half-a-pound of peanuts with chocolate ice cream, syrup and whipped cream, shaken up into one super-malted. Oh, how my mouth waters when I think of those great times at Carson's counter with Hezzie dishing up his masterpieces!" With all the racial-tension headlines these days, Dick was happy to see that Danville remains peacefully integrated, as it has been for more than fifty years. "We went to school together, lived side TRUST YODORA For those intimate moments . . . don't take a chance. .. trust Yodora and feel confident. 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