Keep Moving (3 page)

And if you don’t do that stuff, you should.

This will tell you a lot about me: I do the
New York Times
crossword puzzle in pen. There are three types of people: those who don’t do the crossword puzzle, those who do it in pencil, and those who do it in pen. I have done the
Times
’s crossword puzzles for decades, so you would think I’d be pretty adept at them by now. But no, my ability has stayed the same over all these years. I get through Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pretty easily. Thursday is a test. Friday takes a while; I might carry
it around with me most of the day. And if I get halfway through Saturday’s puzzle, I feel pretty good about myself.

My simple pleasures. I drive a Jaguar. I eat raisin bran with blueberries in the morning and a hamburger for lunch when the craving hits. I like cookies and cake and a big bowl of ice cream every night. I asked my doctor whether I’m eating too much sugar. He said, “Dick, you’re nearly ninety. Enjoy yourself.”

So I do.

Age is something you do not think about until it happens, and I am here to inform you it happens slowly, with a sneaky tap on the shoulder. One day, in my seventies, I was playing volleyball at the beach, as I had for years, and I realized I was winded. That had never happened before—that was the shoulder tap. Then tennis got to be too much—another tap.

The thing that really got me, though, was when I had to give up sailing. I had always sailed. I loved flying across the water with the wind filling the sails. It was thrilling and always so beautiful to look across the water, with the coast in the distance and the sky overhead. It was of the moment, and I felt completely alive and in tune with the world. Then one day the boat heeled, I got disoriented, and it scared me to death. It turned out to be my inner ear—tap, tap, tap.

“You’re getting old,” my doctor said.

“No, I’m not,” I replied. “My inner ear is not what it used to be. But I’m fine.”

Both of us were right. I cultivated new hobbies. I kept moving. The only way to deal with these shoulder taps from Father Time is to accept them, deal with them, and make adjustments. As we get older, none of us stays entirely the same—and who wants to? That’s what I don’t understand about plastic surgery. All that nipping and tucking doesn’t make you look younger—only stranger. My advice? Let the outside sag and wrinkle; change what’s on the inside.

I once considered plastic surgery, though. On the first day of production on
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
I was sitting in the makeup chair and overheard the director whisper to the makeup guy, “What are we going to do about his hooter?”

The makeup guy replied, “I’m not a plastic surgeon.”

I knew I had a big nose. I was teased about it all through high school. The teacher would ask, “Does anybody know the answer to this?” From all corners of the room arose a chorus of “Dick nose.”

After
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
wrapped, I returned home to Los Angeles from England and saw a plastic surgeon. “Why are you here?” he asked.

I told him what had been said about my nose on the movie set. “It seems I need a hooter-plasty,” I explained, trying to make light of a sensitive subject.

“Go home,” the doctor said. “You’re established. You can’t do anything about it. That’s who you are.”

And that’s the way I stayed.

Accepting that life is a perfectly imperfect experience is a crucial part of appreciating senior citizenship and
coming to terms with the past. Every once in a while I will be flipping through the TV channels and see myself in a TV show or movie that I didn’t think was very good when I was making it back in the sixties or seventies. Seeing it all these years later, I think,
Hey, that wasn’t bad. In fact, it was pretty good.

As a younger man, though, I lacked confidence, the confidence that comes with experience. I worried and stressed way more than I should have. Now I see that worrying and stressing never helped accomplish anything. It was only when I let myself go and had fun that the magic happened—and continues to happen.

Here’s another example, this one more recent and personal. My wife is forty-six years younger than me—yes, I know the reaction people have hearing that for the first time (or the third time)—and for that reason I couldn’t wait for her to turn forty. For whatever reason I thought forty sounded much more reasonable than thirty-nine—that is, until I realized no one cared about the difference in our ages as long as we were happy. We went to events together, saw friends at restaurants, all that stuff couples do, and all anyone said to me was, “Dick, it’s nice to see you so happy.”

We had a fantastic time celebrating her fortieth, a
Love Boat–
themed party we had on a four-story boat. Guests were asked to dress as a favorite TV character or personality from the seventies and eighties (we had a couple of Mr. Ts, a Sonny and Cher, and a handful of Magnum P.I.s). I was Mr. Roarke from
Fantasy Island,
and Arlene dressed up as Dolly Parton and kicked off the night with
a spirited lip-synced rendition of “9 to 5.” I morphed from Mr. Roarke into Kenny Rogers (I removed my tie and opened my shirt—I already had a white beard) and joined her in lip-syncing the Dolly Parton–Kenny Rogers hit “Islands in the Stream.” The Vantastix closed the evening with a medley of songs from
Mary Poppins
and
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It was my kind of birthday party—focused on someone else and total fun.

The next day I asked Arlene whether she felt any older. “No,” she said. “If anything, I feel happier.” Perfect. Mission accomplished.

Likewise, on the morning after my eighty-ninth birthday I opened my eyes and said to myself, “My God, this is the first day of my ninetieth year. I feel great.” I got out of bed and went to the gym, where I walked on the treadmill and lifted weights, as is my daily routine. On my way home I stopped at the market, where the gang there was waiting with a present: a pound of coffee and a freshly brewed cup with a large “D” written on the side. My favorite checker, Debbie, sang “Happy Birthday.”

At some point later in the day I realized that at eighty-nine, I was the same age as the stodgy old banker I had played in
Mary Poppins,
Mr. Dawes. I loved playing old people. To this day many fans of the movie don’t realize that was me beneath all that makeup, stooped over, with a mop of white hair, a long beard, a curmudgeonly frown, and legs so weak I tottered precariously on a cane while singing “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.” I had pitched the idea to Walt Disney, who made me audition for the part.

I laughed as I recalled that role. Then I laughed harder, thinking about how I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I
am
that old!

But getting old, I am delighted to report, is not a prescription for acting old. Consider: a few weeks after my birthday I stopped at the vitamin store to get my wife a green protein shake, as I do every day. Outside the store three students from nearby Pepperdine University were singing. One of them had a ukulele. I wandered over and started harmonizing. I didn’t introduce myself; I just joined in and assumed their smiles were an invitation to keep going. We sang a handful of songs together and all had a wonderful start to the day.

Ironically, as I look ahead to my ninth—or is it my tenth?—decade, my only real concern is that I have term life insurance. It’s good up until age ninety-five. If I live beyond then, it cuts off, and there’s no payout. I didn’t realize this when I took out the insurance fifty years ago. Who figures they’ll live to be ninety-five? However, given my health and my attitude, my doctor says that I will likely live to see ninety-five and beyond. My wife says the same thing. So do my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. No one expects me to go anywhere soon.

Good for me. I am not about to complain. In terms of money, though, my family will be up the creek. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I may have to fake my own death before I’m ninety-five. I feel too good.

The Kid Stays in the Game
The Kid Stays in the Game

There used to be a regular poker game at Barbara Sinatra’s house in Malibu, and a great group of people showed up, including Jack Lemmon, Larry Gelbart, and Gregory Peck, who wore a little green visor like an old-time gambler. Everyone was about the same age, in their late sixties or seventies. I took my longtime companion, Michelle Triola, there because she loved to play poker. One night, back when I was doing
Diagnosis Murder,
I let her off and told the gang I was going back home.

“I’m the only one here who doesn’t play poker,” I said.

“You’re the only one here who’s working,” said Gregory Peck.

Oh Brother, How Old Art Thou?
Oh Brother, How Old Art Thou?

(Or, How Do You Know When You’re Old?)
(Or, How Do You Know When You’re Old?)

How do you know when you’re old?

People worry about this. They think about it, they plan for it, and then one day they wake up surprised. They look in the mirror and ask, “Is that really me? Am I old? How did
that
happen?” I have done that many times, though I try not to, despite the daily onslaught of insurance solicitations that arrive in the mail and the TV commercials we all see targeting the ailments, afflictions, and anxieties prevalent among us soldiers in the gray-haired army. Maybe you know you’re old when you start paying attention to those commercials. I change the channel.

I have managed to avoid the question, even though all of the major birthdays that trigger such existential
inquiry are in my past. I have also managed to avoid the question even though my oldest child, Chris, is sixty-five, my next oldest child, Barry, is sixty-four, and my daughters—well, I won’t say their ages. To me, they’ll always be kids. But I also have a forty-year-old grandson among the brood, all of whom are inching up the actuarial table. They may be asking themselves how they will know when they are old. They may even be looking at me for signs.

I don’t want anyone to waste the time, so I’ll point out the obvious. I used to be six-foot-two, and now I am five-foot-eleven. Where did those three inches go? Medically, I’ve been told that vertebrae compact, the skeleton compresses, and you shrink. But I still think of those inches like socks that disappear in the dryer—a mystery. Is that what it means to grow old? You shrink a few inches every few years until you disappear?

Then there’s my hair, which used to be brown but is now gray. Actually, it’s white. That transformation to Santa Claus–white from dishwater brown wasn’t even a speed bump for me. I was touring in
Music Man
at age fifty when I noticed my pate had paled—I was completely white. Instead of being depressed, though, I said to myself, “By God, if I’m ever going to have a chance to look a little like Cary Grant, this is it.”

The truth is, my hair could be blue or green for all I care—as long as I have some on my head.

If ever there was a sign I was old, it was when I was rejected by the AARP magazine. That actually happened a few years ago. They asked whether I would be on the
cover, and I said, “Sure, why not?” Then I received word that they had changed their mind. They put Michael J. Fox on the cover instead. Apparently, at eighty-six, I was
too old
for AARP. I got over it—immediately—as I do most things.

Losing three inches, not getting a magazine cover—what’s the big deal? There are few things in my life I would change, and as a result, I focus on what’s next, not the past. Comedian George Burns, who, when asked late in his life whether he lived in the past, said, “No, I live in Beverly Hills. It’s much nicer.” I live in Malibu and feel the same way. When I do get nostalgic, it’s apt to be for simple pleasures, like the jazz and big band standards from the forties and fifties or the kinds of things that make a night special, like a dress code in a nice restaurant or having my Caesar salad dressing made tableside the way I used to enjoy at fine restaurants in the sixties.

If you are suddenly craving a Caesar salad, it might be a sign that you are old. The original Caesar salad dressing that I remember from restaurants was made with raw egg yolks, Worcestershire sauce, and anchovies, and typically mixed and tossed right at the table. I understand that anchovies were added later and weren’t part of the original recipe. My wife has learned to make it the way I remember, if anyone wants the recipe. We have it all the time. As a result, I am still enjoying my salad days.

My brother, Jerry, who is six years younger than me, has a slightly different take, partially because he is naturally funny and sees life through a comedic lens. But he
has also battled health problems for nearly two decades, from knee replacements (due to his Rafael Nadal–like zeal for chasing down balls on the tennis court) to a liver transplant (while he was on the waiting list, I changed my will to say he could have my liver if I died, and every day he called me to see whether I was still alive). Understandably, those events have taken a toll.

I saw it when he and his wife, Shirley, stayed with us for a couple of months starting last Christmas. While I scooted in and out of the house in my bare feet, as I am known to do (a friend once dubbed me the Barefoot Prince of Malibu), Jerry got around with a cane, the result of a painful back surgery the previous year that had not yet fully healed. It was hard for me to see. I know it was harder for him. One afternoon he landed on the sofa with a heavy sigh.

“How’re you doing today?” I asked.

“Terrible,” he said.

“What’s bothering you?”

“Same thing as yesterday—I’m eighty-three years old!”

“Jer, is there anything good about getting older?” I asked.

“No.”

“What about the lessons you’ve learned?”

“I’m very sorry to say there aren’t any.”

“Do you have any advice for people who are getting older, who are entering their sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties?

“Don’t do it.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t get older.”

What my brother meant was don’t slow down, don’t give up the things you like to do, don’t pay attention to the calendar. In other words, keep moving, stay active, and continue to pursue the interests and activities that keep your spirit young. Jerry is a perfect example. Like me, he blew past sixty-five without thinking of retirement (at the time, he was still playing Luther on the sitcom
Coach
). He’s continued to work into his eighties, slowing only when his health refused to cooperate. A couple of years ago he was booked at a club in Palm Springs.

There was just one problem: he hadn’t done his stand-up act in a while and couldn’t remember his material. A day or two before, he called from his home in Arkansas, asking whether I remembered any of the jokes.

“From twenty-five years ago?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“There’s nothing written down?”

“No.”

He went on anyway. A few days later I ran into Gary Mule Deer, the veteran comedian and musician, who had been at the show. He said my brother had the audience laughing nonstop. According to Gary, there wasn’t a person in the theater who didn’t have a good time. Though not surprised, I called my brother and asked how he’d managed without his act.

“Shirley,” he said, referring to his wife, “remembered my act.”

“And you?”

“Not a clue.”

“What’d you do?”

“She was just offstage, and I kept yelling to her, ‘What do I do now?’ Right in the middle of a song too.”

Most recently Jerry has had a recurring role on
The Middle,
an ABC comedy about a middle-class Indiana family. He plays actress Patricia Heaton’s cantankerous father. Over the Christmas break, while at our house, Jerry pitched the show’s executive producers on having me guest star with him on an episode. We shot it a couple of months later, as soon as they finished writing it. We played feuding brothers trying to mend fences before it’s too late. But when I show up to visit, my energy and agility piss him off—which is similar to our real-life relationship.

For years he’s said that people stop him in airports and restaurants and say, “Hey, Jerry, we loved you on
Coach.
Honey, come here. It’s Dick Van Dyke’s brother.”

Growing up, I didn’t make it easy on him. I was a good student (I could have done better, but I was too busy being social), a performer (I starred in most of the school plays: I was taller than the girls and could be heard in the back row), and student body president and then a DJ at the local radio station before going out on the road as one half of a musical-comedy pantomime act. At sixteen, Jerry visited me in Los Angeles, where I was working nightclubs. Impressed, he returned home to Danville and began doing my act. As he says, “I stole the whole thing, went back and made a fortune—at least $25.”

He still has a letter I sent him following that visit, saying I couldn’t wait to get back to Danville to see his act—“the act you stole from me!” In it I also advised him to get out of nightclubs. “If you stay in nightclubs, you’re going to meet a lot of lousy jerks and die broke. The coming thing is television. We should try to get into television because it should be going great guns.”

I was so gung ho about this new device that I took a correspondence course in television repair as a backup in case show business didn’t work out for me. I urged Jerry to do the same. But he refused to consider a backup plan. “I was afraid if I had one, I would back into it,” he recently explained to me.

And now? Any regrets? “It is what it is,” he said with a shrug. “I’m still here.” And still waxing philosophic about the lessons he learned along the way, starting with this one: “People worry too much about things that don’t matter.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Stuff—the stuff we think other people are going to notice or talk about. As it turns out, nobody gives a crap.”

“That’s one of the advantages of age,” I said. “You don’t worry about what other people think. There’s more honesty as the years go by.”

Jerry nodded. “That’s why I don’t understand plastic surgery,” he said. “All my friends are getting work done. They come up to me and ask, ‘How do I look?’ I say, ‘I don’t know. Who are you?’ You can only go so far. People have this idea that they can fix everything. But they only
fix what they see, and as you get older, it’s the parts you can’t see that need to be fixed—like your ass. Never mind your face. Your face is fine. As you get older, it’s your ass that disappears. And you don’t know that until one day you can’t get up and realize you’re sitting on your back.”

Ladies and gentlemen: my brother.

For me, it is all about how I feel on the inside. These days most of us seventy-, eighty-, and ninety-year-olds feel younger than we are, and the new reality is more like a new honesty: it doesn’t matter what we look like on the outside—whether we have gray hair, no hair, less hair, hearing aids, bifocals or trifocals, stooped shoulders, or orthopedic shoes instead of Florsheims or Ferragamos. Our reflections barely matter. After a certain point age doesn’t matter. Why even count? For that matter, why even look in the mirror with a critical eye?

You get to that place where you are like a favorite old flannel shirt—well worn, faded, thin in places, but so perfectly comfortable you love it more than anything else in the closet. Like that old shirt, you want to feel great. The outside doesn’t matter as much as the texture and touch, all the memories and miles, and, of course, the fact that it still does its job!

At seventy-five, I thought about entering the Senior Olympics. I had been a high jumper in high school, and I felt as good as I did back then. I still ran about a twelve-second hundred-meter and knew I could beat most guys in my age group. If I hadn’t taken a job instead, I might have a gold medal on my mantel.

With the right attitude, age is immaterial. At eighty-nine, I became the executive creative producer of the Malibu Playhouse. The opportunity was unexpected, but I thought, “Why not try?” The playhouse is small: a stage, no curtain, just the bare bones of a theater. But ask anyone who works in theater, and they’ll tell you there’s no limit to the imagination. I have ideas for a sing-along night, a salute to Broadway, and I have spoken to Shirley Jones, Lou Gossett Jr., and others in the neighborhood. Ed Asner, at age eighty-five, recently finished a show. I know many talented people still eager to work. I am going to sign them up.

Only my brother has been skeptical of this new position, and I know that if his back weren’t killing him, he’d be pitching me on the two of us doing
The Sunshine Boys
again. In 2011 we costarred in the Neil Simon classic to raise funds for the theater, and then we took the play on the road for a few nights. We had a blast.

I remember walking into a scene one night, hunched over, and my brother whispered, “Dick, you don’t have to
play
old anymore.”

It broke me up. It also began a conversation between the two of us that we recently continued:

“Jer, at what age did you begin to think of yourself as old?”

“This age.”

“Really?”

“It was just like, ‘Oh, shit, I can’t be eighty-three. I can’t be.’”

“What happened that made you feel that way? Your knees? Your back?”

“No, it was that my phone stopped ringing. I used to be on the phone constantly. I had a lot of friends. Then all of a sudden . . .”

“Do you remember our mother saying the same thing? She complained that everyone was gone. She had no one with whom she could talk about the past. I know what she meant. I had to have all my suits taken in because I’m shrinking. I have the same tailor as George Hamilton. I ran into him at a banquet dinner and asked, ‘How’s our tailor?’ He said, ‘He’s dead.’”

“It’s been like that since I came out here. Everybody I have asked about, I find out they’re dead.” Jerry paused. “On the bright side, they are, and I’m not.”