TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1962)

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Accredited MemberNational Home Study Council mynTschooi I A Cvrrttpondtnet Inttitution — Eitahlithtd 1908 417 8. Dearborn St., Dept. 12-533, Chlcaoo 5, Illinois Please send Free Book, "Graduate to Success," and information on high school training. MONEY "«"« _— AGE AnnRFsq CITV STATE ZONE A COUNTY another and two weeks later the owner skipped town without paying anybody. At this point, the Van Dykes were living off Dick's partner. who"d saved a few dollars. Driving cross-country. Dick's jalopy emitted one great wheeze and breathed its last. They hadn't a cent. And the town had no telegraph office. Parking his wife in the garage for security. Dick borrowed a car and drove to the nearest town to wire his in-laws for forty dollars. "We picked that amount." Dick says, "because we figured it was the very least amount we needed to get home and the very most they'd probably send us. Who knows but they thought they'd never see that money again. We paid it back, but it took a long time." Marjorie kept encouraging him. although many times he was ready to give up the business. Eventually she agreed he should try television instead of night clubs — after all, traveling with children was rough. For one year they lived in a station wagon with portable baby beds, footlockers and trunks inside it and tricycles and highchairs on top of it. In this manner they traveled from place to place "like." as Dick says. "Okies. "We even had a portable bottle warmer which plugged into the cigarette lighter. We'd travel all night. I'd take a Dexadrine early in the morning to keep going, go through the whole day's rehearsal, then do a show at night. We lived from motel to transient hotel. Sometimes we'd cook in the room. Sometimes we'd eat in a restaurant. It wasn't easy." This era has been permanently immortalized in a 14-karat station wagon which today dangles from Mrs. Van Dyke's gold charm bracelet. After "laying so many bombs as a comedian." he decided to quit and open an advertising agency in the Middle West. He rented a room, furnished it with unpainted furniture and waited. He made tie-ins for one local radio show every week and man-on-the-street interviews which he did in front of a jewelry store daily. At first, clients were slow. Nothing happened. Then, one year later, something did happen, Danville's answer to Madison Avenue went bankrupt. "My reaction." says Dick, "was to retreat into unsociability. Get quiet. My wife, though, was never hard hit. Down deep I don't think Margie really cares whether she has much money or not. I'm the one who worries about security, where do we go from here, does this last, and so on. But she doesn't care. She's fully prepared for things to blow up. We're both all set someday to fold our tents and steal away and open a gas station some place." The wrong answers This being when TV was still in its harmless stages, he drifted back into broadcasting and ended up with a morning program in Atlanta which progressed to an afternoon program in New Orleans. And it was here Byron Paul heard him again and signed him to a seven-year CBS contract. "I served three years "of it just sit ting around like a starlet doing nothing," grins Dick. "They stuck me on panel shows. And I wasn't particularly witty. I mean, let's face it. The plain fact is, I was lousy. I was one of the originals on 'To Tell the Truth,' but I couldn't ever play the game correctly. Never ever guessed one blessed thing. They fired me after four weeks. Let's put it this way: I was just plain bad." This was in '55 at the crest of the wave of comedians, when Gobel, Berle, Caesar, Gleason, Buttons all had their own shows. So CBS, digging around for another personality, imported Van Dyke in hopes he'd be another Garry or Garroway. By the time they decided what to do with him, comedy had given way to the "Gisele MacKenzie" or the "Girl Singers Era." "Just a case of bad timing." says Dick. "One of my many cases of bad timing." The future looked even bleaker than his past so, unappealing though it was, they made plans to return to Atlanta. And then the finger of fate beckoned towards Broadway. It was a revue titled "The Boys Against the Girls." featuring another unknown named Shelley Berman. The revue flopped, but Dick Van Dyke, who claims he's a cross between Stan Laurel and Cary Grant, didn't. From that came two TV specials, including the two-hour one. "The Fabulous Fifties." From that came "Bye Bye Birdie." And from that came "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Today, although they still rough it on beans and hamburger once in awhile, the Van Dykes have full-time help so that Marjorie only has to cook "on special occasions." And Dick, of course, is too busy with daily work schedules and hobbies like painting, sculpting, interior decorating and home movies to flip a flapjack even if he wanted it. "But," Dick says, "no matter how much money we have today, we still can't get away from margarine. After so many years counting pennies, it takes quite a while to get adjusted to that 70f spread!" Their first home was a three-room apartment in a two-family house ("the landlord lived above us"). After fourteen years, four children, one miscarriage, a couple of bankruptcies and one eviction notice, they moved ten minutes away to a brand-new. ten-room estate they just built in an exclusive section of Brentwood. Still. Dick is far removed from what you'd expect of a fresh, young TV comedian who just struck it rich. Immaculately tailored, extremely polite, he even peppers his conversation with unhead of phrases like "Excuse me" and "Pardon me." "You know." he confides. "Marjorie and I talk all the time about what it costs us to live these days. Clothes cost more, tips, everything costs more. We're not flashy spenders. We're simple people enjoying what we've never before had in our lives. But it makes us sick. We now spend in a week what we once lived on for a whole year!" As a result the four children, who range in age from twelve to an infant ("the first three — Christian, Barry. Stacey— spell CBS") have taken the sudden vault to fame, fortune and their