Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Dick Van Dyke & Arlene Silver
Episode Date: January 22, 2025It’s a double date for the ages as Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen visit Dick Van Dyke and his wife Arlene Silver at their lovely home! Dick is a personal hero to Ted and Mary, so they’re asking h...im about his illustrious career from his broadcasting roots to Broadway and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Dick also shares about encounters with Walter Cronkite and Stan Laurel and his experiences working on films like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. Bonus: Ted and Mary get Dick and Arlene’s respective takes on how their first meeting went down.  This conversation was recorded in 2024. To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today. For full-length video of this episode including shots of Dick and Arlene’s keepsakes, visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco and subscribe.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Oh my god, I guess everybody's dead. I'm not hurting anybody's feelings.
Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson and
me, Mary Steenburgen.
And we're married, for those of you who don't know that.
Because of the fires in LA, we're not at the Team Coco studio, as we usually are.
We're hunkered down in our home.
We're safe, sad, but safe.
I know a lot of you have been watching this on TV and social media,
and like all of us, everybody wants to find a way to help.
And I know there are many really good causes out there.
So we encourage you to pick whichever one speaks to you.
Today we're going to talk about World Central Kitchen
that José Andrés created.
He's out in LA right now working to feed first responders
with his food trucks and his emergency kitchens.
And I should say that Jose was on our podcast a couple of months ago and one of the most
remarkable people I've ever had the pleasure to talk with.
You came home that day and you couldn't stop talking about him and how extraordinary he
was and as amazing as you might think he is.
Anyway, we really encourage you to check out World Central Kitchen.
They've served millions of folks in crisis zones all across the world.
So if you would like to help, you can visit wck.org and give generously.
And there's also a link to donate in today's episode description.
This is the first time we've gone into a studio
or our home to record something since the fire started.
So it's tricky because you don't want to seem tone deaf,
but we also want to share with you
some of the remarkable people we've been talking about.
So what we're trying to do is always make sure that if you're listening to this, you're
being guided in a direction that will support and nurture the people who have been affected
by these fires.
We're working on this and we'll get back to you soon on how we're going to do that.
But first, we're going to talk about the remarkable Dick Van Dyke and his wife Arlene Silver,
who we got to talk to in their Malibu home a couple of months ago.
It was not a real experience.
It really was.
You know, for us, Dick has been a hero.
Since we were very young, we watched him in movies and on television.
I think for you, the Dick Van Dyke show was very seminal.
Literally the first thing I saw when I got my first TV,
because I grew up without a television.
Well, but, Clay, tell them how you got your television.
All right, I was at Stanford University,
and I grew up without, literally, this was my first TV.
My parents didn't want a TV in the house.
I got back at them, didn't I?
I found this old discarded TV on the street at Stanford and I put it up in my dorm room
and I crawled out on the roof to tap into the cable of some teacher that lived below
us.
Forgive me. that lived below us, forgive me, and turned on the TV at 11 o'clock in the
morning and literally saw Dick tripping over the Ottoman on the Dick Van Dyke
show and I was in love from that moment. I mean one of the most remarkable
physical comedians we've ever had the pleasure of being exposed to.
I have to say going to their house, I had no idea what it would
be like. And it's this lovely old Spanish home in Malibu. It's just filled with fantastic
memorabilia and love letters from all kinds of people and Charlie Chaplin's he has this letter from Charlie Chaplin.
There's a life-size sculpture of Dick that's very real looking and you keep kind of being
startled because you think he's somehow behind you and that was from Mary Poppins.
What I took away when I left there was we had just interviewed one of the oldest people I know and also his
partner in crime who's a lot younger than him but the two of them are beautifully like
children together. They play, they laugh constantly, they love to dance. She adores him.
And she's very much like this wonderful, supportive archive
of his life.
If he can't remember a name, and by the way,
he remembers so much detail.
But when he can't remember a year or a name or something,
she knows it.
She's like this wonderful Tic-Tac computer that knows all the answers and they're joyful.
Yeah, it was kind of one of our best double dates.
But the room was surrounded with production people and cameras and sound people and producers
and everyone,
everyone in that room felt like we were experiencing
something magical.
Anyway, we're probably talking too much about it.
We should just care.
Yeah, let them speak for themselves.
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Dick Van Dyke
and Arlene Siltman.
Thank you for letting us into your home.
Oh, thanks for coming.
First off, all of us.
So much easier.
They just lowered the federal rate a half a percent.
And that means?
Yeah.
We're, we're, we, we know nothing about money.
Literally.
Tell me what that means and if that's a good thing.
He doesn't either.
Terrible businessman.
I was talking today about guys like Tom Hanks.
Yeah.
Who are not only good actors, but you have
a business sense.
And he's out producing, I don't do anything.
I don't have any business head whatsoever.
Just so you know, we've been so excited all week that we sat in bed this morning having
our many cups of coffee watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Yeah.
It wasn't on or is it?
No, well it can be. You just go to Apple TV and there it is. And I hadn't seen it for quite a few
years and we're singing, we're singing this song.
Speaking of business, I'm supposed to own 20% of that movie, but I haven't
seen any checks in 30 years.
Oh my goodness.
Did they come for a while and then stop?
No, they never came.
Oh.
Yeah.
Well, call Tom Hanks and we're going to get a lawsuit going.
Catch you your money.
But didn't you just, we're going to jump all over the place, but didn't
you hurt yourself on that film?
Yes, I did.
Like the other dancers who warm up, I didn't warm up before a dance number and I'm twice
their age.
And I had to kick on it.
Remember we were going around in the bakery?
Yes.
Stuck my foot out and tore the muscle in the back of my leg.
Oh.
Yeah. We shot other stuff till I healed up.
So you got through the old bamboo fine. That one looks so tricky.
I never have on Broadway. The kids would be out on the stage warming up. I never warmed up. I never
vocalized. Nothing. Just walk out and do it. Very unprofessional
of me.
That's like Barbra Streisand, she never sings around the house, she barely warms up ever.
Really?
Yeah.
Yes, I asked her husband, I said, so when she goes in the shower, do you just like run
there and stand there listening? And he goes, no, she doesn't sing in the shower.
No, she doesn't sing in the shower. She doesn't sing. She doesn't have to.
No, it's crazy.
You told me that she goes up on a piano and goes along to tone her voice. That's what you told me.
That's what she told me.
Okay, well.
Well, I told her the first time, her first trip to Los Angeles many years ago, I introduced her
at some hotel. I got to introduce her.
Coconut Grove? Was it the Coconut Grove? ago, I introduced her at some hotel. I got to introduce her.
Coconut Grove? Was it the Coconut Grove?
Maybe. My memory is, I can't remember what I had for breakfast.
You're welcome to the club.
We almost look alike, don't we?
We do.
Now you guys have such a similarity, such similar tall, beautiful shapes and both so graceful.
Yeah, we look like brothers.
Well, let me, let me jump to my origin story with you.
I grew up without a television in Arizona.
My mother didn't want one, so we didn't have one.
My first TV came was I was at Stanford university.
I found one on the street, lifted it up to our room, plugged it in and tapped
into some teacher's antenna, crawled out on the roof, turned it on.
And it was around 11 o'clock in the morning.
And it was a rerun of the Dick Van Dyke show.
And as I turned it on, it literally was you tumbling over the Ottoman.
And I, I was smitten and I. And I was your fan and stalker from that moment
on. I remember early on when I started to do cheers and we'd be at a similar event.
I could almost feel like your eyes started to cross when you saw me coming towards you
again to tell you that story or worship at your feet. You are my hero.
So I was hearing introduction to TV.
You were.
Yeah.
And to physical comedy, nobody, nobody does it as well as you did it. Really.
Well, I practiced a lot as a kid. I used to go to Laurel and Hardy movies on Saturday
and then come home and falling down in the grass. Fact you're saying falling.
Yeah, I was prepared.
And what town was that?
Where did you grow up?
Oh, in Danville, Illinois, yeah.
Yeah, wow.
Didn't you get a chance to say something
to Stan Laurel too?
Oh yeah.
Where you claimed...
I started looking for my, you know,
Stan and Buster Keaton the minute I got out here. I was looking up a phone
number one day and there was Stan Laurel in Santa Monica. I called him up, but he knew me from the
show. So I got to go out to his house and meet him and I've got pictures. And I did the same with
Buster. I went to his house in the valley same with Buster. Their names?
Through his house in the valley.
They were in the phone book?
No, he wasn't in the phone book.
I got him through Stan.
Stan was in the phone book, Bill.
You know, I did the eulogies at both of their funerals.
Really?
Yeah.
And the one that Stan ended up in a book of the 100 best eulogies of the century, Stan.
Really?
Yeah, I worked hard on it.
Yeah.
Wow.
I remember you quoted in the book you wrote that you told him, Stan, I did steal a lot
of my material from you and he just went, I know.
He did.
He said, I know.
That's right.
I've got his derby and I've got Buster Keaton's pool set.
Wow.
I'm going to look.
Yeah.
That had quite a history.
Somebody picked it up on the camera team, I think when he died, took it home, gave
it to his uncle and I didn't get it till not too long ago when his uncle died and they
I think he got lost in a card game that's what that was that yeah yeah that's we have it now
you also mentioned your other hero was Carl Reiner I love that you mentioned that he was
not only a great talent he was one of the nicest people I ever knew. He was an angel, that guy.
Loved him. If you don't mind me pushing this around, how did that, the Dick Van Dyke show,
come to be? Where did it come into your life? How was it? Well, I was still, I was doing Bye Bye
Birdie for a year and the pilot came up and my agent told me it was between me and Johnny Carson to do the pilot.
And I thought, well, and so when the birdie was over, no way, I took a week off, flew out
here and did a pilot with Carl and came back and he called me and said, it sold. And then at the end of the first season, we got
canceled. Really got canceled. We were on against Perry Como, who was on NBC, and he
made us every night. So we got canceled. Sheldon Leonard, who was the executive producer,
went down to Cincinnati to Procter & Gamble and talked them into it.
He said, this show deserves another chance. And they gave us another chance.
And then we ran for five years. Did they move the night? Did they move it to a different way?
During that first year, it bounced around a little bit. I think, what was the final night?
Tuesday? I don't know. I think that what was the final night? Two, Tuesday?
I don't know. I came in with reruns.
Didn't have the TV.
When were you born?
47.
47.
I got married in 48.
When you think I go back to 25, I'm almost a
hundred.
I know.
This is insane.
to 25, I'm almost a hundred.
I know. This is insane.
You were, you were about a month old when my father's sister was born.
Um, she's about a month younger than you.
You're both going to celebrate your 100th birthday.
Yeah.
I want to have a big party.
I love the book you wrote about, we're talking about age and how you never
thought about age until somebody came along and said, write a book about age.
And, uh, but for you, it was never a thing.
Oh no.
You would just live, live your life.
I could, I've got another book in me by now. That was
what? 50 years ago. No, no, no. The Keep Moving book.
Oh, Keep Moving. Yeah. I think it was 10, 15 years ago.
Well, somebody said, to what do you attribute your age and physical condition? I said,
I've always exercised. Three days a week, we go to the gym still. Three days a week and I think
that's it. Well, I'm not stove up like my equals. I had met you before at events and then we lived
in Malibu for a while, Mary and I and kids and everybody and I would go to the same gym you did. And if I got there early enough, I would see you literally work out on some weight
machine and then almost like you were doing circuit training, you would not walk
to the next machine, you dance, you literally dance to the next machine.
And I watched that for a couple of weeks and finally I talked to you about your exercise.
And you said you would come to the gym and work out for whatever hour, whatever it is.
Then you would go home, you would swim laps for whatever, and then get back into bed and take a nap.
And then take a nap, exactly.
Yeah, good routine. Was that at Canaan?
Yes, the upstairs kind of gym. going to happen. Exactly. Good routine. Was that at Canaan? Uh, yes.
The upstairs kind of gym.
Right.
Yeah.
You should see the new one.
Oh, really great.
Yeah.
Just a couple of blocks from here.
Do you do what, elliptical stuff?
What do you do?
What do you work out on?
Well, I get down and do a lot of stretching and
yoga type things, sit-ups, and they have
machines, you know, sit-ups, and they have machines,
sit-up machines. Yeah, something for almost every exercise. And she works out too.
Can I tell you my favorite experience in my life? I was 15 years old in Crawfordville, Indiana.
My dad had just been transferred there. I was a freshman in high school
on the track team running the 100 and the 200, the high jump. Across the street from me was
Wabash College. And on Saturdays, they had their track meets. So I'd go over and watch that. And
our coach would be one of the officials. One day I met there running against Purdue.
officials went to Amit, they're running against Purdue. And he came over and he said, the anchor man on the relay team, twisted his ankle, you want to run it? I said, yeah, sure.
I ran barefoot against Purdue, beat the guy by five yards. Beat him by five yards. The Purdue guy, I'm 15.
I couldn't believe it.
I thought I'm going to the Olympics.
I was never that fast again. I think it was the bare feet makes the difference.
So bare feet was just for that moment or did you go barefoot a lot?
No, I didn't go barefoot after they wouldn't let me.
He's barefoot now.
But the Africans all run barefoot.
He's always barefoot.
That's true.
But I was really fast. That's another secret. Africans all run barefoot. But I was really fast.
LS. That's another secret. You're always barefoot.
KS. Yeah, I am always barefoot. LS. The grounding.
KS. You remember when the Fosbury flop went over seven feet backwards?
LS. Yes, I do. Yeah. KS. The first time in my life I ever swore,
I said, son of a bitch when I I saw that because the old Western roll and.
Or the scissors when I started.
It was just the scissors.
Yeah, they didn't get you anywhere.
No.
And there was a Western roll and Eastern roll.
Yeah.
But he went over backwards over seven feet and everybody.
Why didn't somebody think of that before?
That's amazing.
Now girls are jumping that high.
So how did you wait?
So there are two things I want to talk about.
Your voice, you were singing a cappella early on in life.
Is that right?
Well, yeah, I sang with the choir in high school
and then formed a barbershop quartet, which I still have.
Are you still doing that?
I knew you did it up until.
Yeah.
Nobody does barbershop anymore.
Yeah.
I was looking for a new base.
Can't find anybody who even heard of it.
What else do we do at the gym?
We sing duets all day.
But I play music he knows.
Right.
And I played in the sound system and he's singing.
That's her music. I don't understand. So I had to learn music he knows and I played in the sound system and he's singing. Her music I don't understand.
So I had to learn music he knows so I've learned thousands of songs.
She knows every 40 song there is.
They're pretty great.
Yeah, they are great.
They are.
Did you take dance classes early on?
No.
No.
When I first got in the business and you know, actually started working, I thought
somebody's going to find out that I have no training and I want to be in trouble.
Because I never had dancing, acting, singing, nothing. I just broke in and managed to fool
everybody all these years. Wait, so Dick, did you first go to New York and you did Bye Bye Birdie there or did you
come to California first? Touring with your partner, Phil.
Yeah, we had a record act. Another guy, local guy in me called the Merry Mutes. Very popular in
those days. Lipsync.
Panamime to records, you know, Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. We traveled all over the country
records, you know, being cross being Mary Martin. We traveled all over the country as an act.
Yeah.
Yeah, and we ended up in Atlanta, Georgia
because we liked it.
And we finally split up.
I got a job at a television station
as an announcer and doing a show.
And I got a buddy of mine from the army,
from the air force, ended up a director at CBS and
said, I'll pay you your way up if you want to do an audition.
So I go to New York.
Who was the gal's name?
I did it on a show.
Oh, Janey Ford?
No, no. Anyway, it was
some opera singer who had a show and at the end of it, they held the audience over
and I did my little act. I sang a song, which I can't remember.
Once in Love with Amy?
Once in Love with Amy with a little horseshoe.
A little horseshoe.
And I did a little monologue and that was it. And the next morning they called me in and said,
you've got a seven year contract, just like that. Starting at 20,000 a year. That was twice what I
would make them. So we moved to New York and I was the host of the morning show, the CBS morning show for
a year. With the anchor, who was the anchor? Somebody famous. Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite
was my newsman. That's so astounding. I'd never heard that. Nobody ever heard me because Dave
Garroway was on NBC and took all the ratings. But Walter had just come from radio,
of course. Wonderful man. He did a strip tease. I never saw it, but I understand it was sensational.
But finally they want to transfer him to nighttime. And he came to me and said, Dick, what did I do? I said, you jerk, I can't fire
anybody. I'm lucky to have this job. So he went to nighttime and became Walter the Grongite. He was
a wonderful guy. And who is your news lady? Tell me. Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters.
Well, she was continuity at the time.
She was writing.
Yeah.
Well, still, I mean.
So were she in each other's books?
Yeah.
So did you leave that seven year contract then to go do Bye Bye Birdie or?
No, CBS left that contract.
Broke up with you.
They kept me for three years.
They tried me for three years.
They tried me as a game show host.
I was awful and I forget what else.
You tried, you were the, did the pilot for Price is Right.
I did the pilot for Price is Right.
You're amazing by the way.
I know everything.
She's in my memory.
I wish.
We have a half a brain each.
When we play Wordle, we do it together.
We do it together.
We do it together because together we're genius, but not separately.
It takes two of us.
No, they called me in and got an audience off the street and I did it, a pilot of it.
And I went home, I said, the dumbest thing, people guessing how much something cost,
that's a television show?
That was 50 years ago.
I still don't understand it.
How did you get to Bye Bye Birdie on stage?
The CBS dropped me, and there I was on Long Island
with a family and no job.
So I just started going around auditioning for everything,
you know, opera and ballet, anything.
I stood in lines all day, every day.
And I auditioned for a Gower champion who directed it.
And I sang Once in Love with Amy
and did my little thing again.
He came up and said, you've got the part.
Wow.
Wow.
I've always thought it was because we were almost the same height, build
and everything that he w you know, he thought I, and then I almost got fired
out of town because I wasn't delivering.
I was a wreck.
You know, you go to Philadelphia with the show and still perform for audiences, but
you're still trying things.
Right.
And for some reason I couldn't, I was just a nervous wreck about Broadway.
And they brought a tune down for Cheetah Rivera.
And she said, look, Dick hasn't anything to do in the first act.
Why don't you give it to him?
It was Happy Face.
Wow. She gave me
happy face, which won me a Tony. Yeah. And what year was that? 61, something like that. Because
once I got a year there, I came straight out to Carl and we started the show.
And that was 61 to 65 or 66.
Six.
61 to 66.
Six, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was five years.
Nobody wanted to quit the show, but Carl wanted to go on and do some movies and things.
Right.
I mean, the cast was, we were heartbroken.
We had such fun.
It was such a great group.
Wasn't like coming to work at all.
Kind of was fun.
Oh, okay.
Half those scripts were written on the floor.
He'd give us a basic script
and then between Rosy and Maury and me,
we started throwing lines and.
Right.
Yeah, that was the fun of it.
So there was improv in there? A lot of it, yeah. Even on the fun of it. There was improv in there.
A lot of it, yeah.
Even on the air there was.
Really?
Sometimes.
Well, we had an audience
and I can never understand
can you do comedy without an audience?
You need them to work with you.
I found you never as good in your rehearsal
or dress rehearsal as you are with the audience.
It takes you to a whole new place.
Oh no, you come up in several notches.
Yeah.
And, and they guide you.
They can change the mood by their reaction.
Yeah.
The longest laugh I ever got in my life was one that CBS didn't want us to do,
but we thought our babies were mixed up.
And the other couple turns out to be black
when they walk in.
That was, we had to cut the cameras
because the audience wouldn't stop laughing.
And the network was scared to death of it.
Scared to death of it back in those days.
Oh, what a laugh.
It was just great.
I got to work with Mary once.
She was at the line.
Mary Tyler Moore.
Mary Tyler Moore, yeah.
From day one, she just had it.
She just had it.
Carl picked her because of her voice.
And if she had that high pitched ping in her voice,
the pilot, she was good, she played her part.
But after working with Maureen, Rosie and me,
she picked it up by the third show she was dynamite.
She was the greatest.
Yeah, I couldn't have picked anybody better.
And I'm so happy for her.
Her career went.
Yes.
And you were a big part of that.
You really championed actually all the women that you worked with.
And that wasn't true of all the male actors of your time, but you were really so, you
know, she had the nicest things
to say about you.
RL.
Oh, Mary did?
Oh, great.
Well, you know, when the show was over, I could tell the network just saw her as the
wife who supported it.
She wasn't getting anything from the network.
So we did a special called Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman, where we showcased everything
she did.
Dan said she just blew this place away.
The next day they called her.
And got the marriage on board.
We had to get their attention.
Oh, this was after the show.
Yeah.
The network, you got to nudge them a little bit.
They didn't get it, that she was great.
So that was through 66, the Dick Van Dyke show.
Did you take time off or do a Bye Bye Birdie during the summer?
When did you shoot?
I did Bye Bye Birdie during the summer.
Wow.
Right.
We did Bye Bye Birdie and then you left it to do the Dick Van Dyke show, right?
But the movie.
Oh, the movie.
The movie.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
Talk about the movie.
Did you ever see, the movie?
The movie.
Did you ever see the stage show?
No.
It made me so angry.
It was a romp on Broadway.
It was just such a great hit,
and they rewrote it for Ann Markle.
Ann Markle. Right.
And changed all the lines, changed everything.
Took out some of the songs,
and it was nothing compared to the Broadway show.
It just missed entirely.
And the only two from the original were Paul Lin and me,
and we were both saying, what a, this is terrible.
They really ruined it.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, can't go back and fix it,
but the Broadway show was a just flew.
Who played? I thought Maureen Stapleton was very funny in the movie.
Yeah. She was amazing. That was the first thing I think I saw her.
You know, she was afraid of going out in the world bothered her. She didn't like to cross
the street by herself. She had the strength. Yeah. Sweet as she could be.
Cause she had this phobia.
The Hollywood party, the rap party, Paul
Lind.
Oh, can I say these things?
Yes, you can.
You can say anything.
We are at a big long table and Paul Lind
leans down on this table.
Ann Margaret, I'm the only one here that
doesn't want to fuck you.
That's great.
Paul was as funny as you can get.
A nice guy except when he drank and then he got a little sharp.
Was that an example of him drinking a little bit?
Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I thought the party for the movie was at the director's house.
Everybody had finished, they knew he came in the living room.
Oh no.
Marina was sitting on the floor with a bowl of salad.
It's like his first Hollywood party.
Oh my God. I guess everybody's dead.
I can, I'm not hurting anybody's feeling.
Wow.
Tell me about, I loved the movie.
Now I'm blanking on his name, the Karl Reiner wrote for you and directed The Comet.
I thought that was outstanding where you
played the silent movie star.
Yeah.
Who.
It didn't do anything.
And people wouldn't go to see me do a serious
role and it wasn't really a serious role, but we
would go out with a camera, a handheld 16 and
look for things to do.
Right.
If a fire engine went by, jumped on it and we had reams of footage,
unfortunately, that disappeared. Just fun things we did out in public. And then we took all the
film out in my backyard and dragged it over the grass to make it look old.
CB Oh, really? So it would project like an old movie. They're so authentic.
Those silent movies.
We both felt that it was a great example of that period.
We thought we really caught it, but people didn't want to say it and nobody,
and what was the other one?
Nowadays, people always talk about that movie.
Oh, it's wonderful.
And your performance is astounding.
It is.
About recovering or still alcoholic. And your performance is astounding. Of a recovering or still alcoholic,
I can't remember the character. You had a drinking problem.
Yeah. Yeah. No, the character you played.
The character you were playing. Yeah. Was a recovering alcoholic.
Was it? Yeah, I think so.
The other one was morning after that you lived.
That was a crazy guy.
Mickey Rooney. Did you talk about your sobriety?
Do you talk about it in your book?
Not much.
It's been, got what, 45, 50 years.
Right.
I went through a short period where I realized I was
trapped and I went and AA and got help right away.
Went to, uh, some place where you-
Rehab.
Who you get rehab.
Yeah.
One of those things.
You had to go to rehab.
Yeah.
I didn't have it for long.
What took me the longest was smoking.
Wow.
Did you ever smoke?
Yeah, it was tough.
It took me, we both did.
Did you?
It was brutal.
That's rough.
Brutal.
I, we did a movie about it. That's right it with Norman Lear. What was the name of it?
Cold Turkey. Cold Turkey. And we were both doing pretty good, not smoking, but he had to direct
a room full of local people. It had to be smoke filled. Everybody was smoking. And it was one
little lady who didn't know how to do it.
And Norman said, no, hold it like this.
And I saw him take the draw and I thought his eyes go.
He smoked a pack that day.
I saw it.
I should have said no, because his eyes just changed.
Yeah.
I've never trusted people who can smoke one cigarette a day.
It's like, I'm one cigarette away from a pack a day.
I know.
Oh yeah.
How do you do that?
One a day?
No, I don't know.
It's like one drink a day.
Yes.
But you love your Nicorette now.
You, you are addicted to Nicorette gum.
I'm still on Nicorette to this day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I still chew it.
And it's the delivery system that's bad for you, right?
It's the smoke and the tar and the nicotine.
The nicotine, if you deliver it through gum, is not harmful for you.
Is that right?
We can check that.
It can be at an excessive rate.
I mean, the amount he does, it could cause some, I mean, like in your bloodstream, the nicotine.
Oh yeah, but it doesn't get in your lungs.
No, no, no, it's much better than smoking.
Tom Poston was in that movie and he couldn't,
the whole town had to quit smoking to get the money
and he couldn't stop smoking because he was also a drunk,
a very rich drunk.
And I don't know how many takes I had to do to get through.
He broke me up because the drinking bone is smoking bone.
He said, you see, they go.
And I, every, what do you call me?
Riverman, Riverman.
I bet I did 12 takes and I thought I couldn't hold it.
I just kept falling apart.
But he is funny in that.
Are you a giggler on set? Yes. I couldn't hold it. I just kept falling apart. But he is funny in that thing.
Are you a giggler on set?
Yes. I am so glad to hear it. I am the worst. I'm terrible. I humiliate myself. I get out of control.
It's funny. Deacon, you know, the big guy. When he was going to go up, a bead of sweat would appear and I would know,
and I would go. I was going, he was going to go up, but I'd see that bead of sweat.
Are there outtakes from the Mary Tyler Moore show? Did anybody ever?
There are outtakes. There's an outtake reel, I think.
Oh my God, I bet that's great.
On YouTube, you can find it, but I heard that Carl didn't like showing that because it breaks
the reality.
Actually, I looked at him later and I didn't think
they were all that funny. We thought, you know, we broke up and thought it was funny.
Can we jump around a little bit more? Because when I first met you, I also heard stories of how you
were building, I don't know if you built that, but building, um, I don't know if it's
paper mache or what it was, uh, life replicas of people that you made so that some, so a woman
could sit with this man next to her in the seat of her car. And-
Oh, well, it's Halloween. He makes monsters.
Yeah. I make Halloween monsters. We do a Halloween a block long.
Oh yeah. We're obsessed.
Thousands of people come. We're in our what, 40th year?
Well, you've been doing it since the 60s, but then he was going to stop doing it 10 years ago.
We sold all the monsters. James Cameron used to be our neighbor and we had competing
Halloweens. And he bought all of our
Bonsters and we said, yeah, we're going to stop. It's too much work. And then when Halloween came
around, we were sad that we liked the street thing. So that was-
That's what made the marriage, Halloween and singing together. It's coming pretty soon too.
So I thought, well, what else can we do? That's not a lot of work.
And I love to lip sync.
So I did Ursula on the steps out here and everyone loved it.
And, and then Dick's like, we got to get a stage.
We got to get lights.
That was 10 years ago.
I've been doing Ursula for 10 years and we do a live show with puppets and
dancing and he comes out if out if he feels like it.
We put a stage in front of the garage.
Yeah.
We set up right now.
Real lighting and everything.
That's fantastic.
We get so many kids.
It's just great.
We love it.
We open the gates from six to nine so that all the kids can come in.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fun.
So maybe I got the mannequin thing wrong, but I do know you were into computer and in
a CG.
CGI.
Yeah.
Didn't you get high?
Didn't they let you do something professionally on a film?
Yeah, a motorcycle thing of a motorcycle going off a cliff.
And I did it in Light wave, my little CG machine.
Yeah.
And they used it.
So I got a credit for a special effect.
That's great.
Yeah.
Great hobby.
Do you still play around with that?
I do.
It's kind of grown past me.
It's gotten so complicated.
Arlene, can we talk about how you guys met?
Sure.
I was backstage at, um, in the green room of what?
Sag awards.
Sag awards.
Right.
And we're just sitting there by myself and she walked by.
And for the first time in my life, I approached her.
I just jumped up.
I said, hi, I'm Dick.
Almost without thinking. And she sat down, I introduced myself,
and I was totally in love at first sight. And I found out she was a makeup lady and I said,
you can come on my show. She had one business card left, gave it to me and my little fish.
And I got her on the show as a make up.
A Hallmark movie. Was that what it was?
Yeah. But what did I say to you the first thing I said to you?
Oh, you seem to know who I was. No, that's not true. Of course I know who he is. He's
Dick Van Dyke. I said I had never seen anything he was in.
She'd never seen Mary Poppins. I think she thought it was Christopher Plummer.
No, I knew that Julie Anders was in another movie like Sound of Music and there was a guy in it like Christopher Plummer. So Dick was always like in my peripheral. I knew who he was. I mean,
he's Dick Van Dyke, but when I met him, I went, I don't know
why I know who he is because the cast of Mary Tyler Moore was there to give an award for best
cast at SAG awards. So Dick said, will you watch my seat? I'm going to go get my makeup done.
And I'm like, okay, I didn't believe him. And then the cast goes
out, no, he sits down and then he, the cast goes out to give the award and he comes over
and sits next to me and I said, aren't you supposed to go out with them? Because I thought
he was on the Mary Tyler Morish. I was like wrong about everything. And then you said,
oh, what do you do? And I said, um, I'm a makeup artist.
I've had a million jobs, but at that, that night I was a makeup artist.
And, um, he said, Oh, I'm doing this murder mystery thing.
Um, I might need a makeup artist.
I said, Oh, hasn't that been on the air for a long time?
Cause diagnosis murder had been off the air for 10 years.
It was this little hallmark.
I just was wrong about everything.
Were you aware that he was looking at you?
No, no, not at all.
In a way it was kind of good for me because she
wasn't over impressed or anything.
No.
I was just a guy.
It doesn't sound like she was very impressed at all.
It was a hard sell.
I'll say that.
They were at the after party.
I always go to the after party and I put my makeup away and then we go to the after party
and Dick never goes to an after party and there's pictures of him at the, like going
into the after party, like he's looking for me.
And I was putting my makeup away so I wasn't even in there yet.
And then people were coming up to me at the party saying,
were you talking to Dick Van Dyke?
And I'm like, yeah, what?
I was like, I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
And then I went to work the next day.
I was working at a makeup school and I told them I met Dick Van Dyke.
And they're like, what?
You know, just like, you know.
Going through the crowd, my manager was with me
and he kept saying, what is, what are you doing?
What is the matter with, I wouldn't tell him.
I gotta, I gotta find this picture
cause Dick is all smiles and big eyes.
And then Bob, his publicist is behind him,
just like so puzzled, like, you know what he's doing.
He knows I don't go to parties.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's something you, I don't know if you wrote it in the book, but in reference to you guys
getting together, it just struck me. I loved it. That was me coughing, not breaking up in tears.
Sorry. Although it's a wonderful phrase. You said in reference to being a widower and then finding love again, that a happy heart is a horrible
thing to waste. And I just love that. Yes, it's a quote in your book.
That's a good quote. Yeah.
Aww.
But she's certainly done that for me and kept me, you know, alive and working and young. Yeah.
There are so many beautiful photos of the two of you
around here dancing and singing. You have a water slide outside. It feels like...
Kareem is on the mantle there, which she won for producing a Bandai special. All my others are in
here. Well, it feels like you two have a lot of joy to go there.
The whole house sings of it.
I'm assuming a lot of laughter.
Oh yeah.
Boy, do we laugh a lot.
Yeah.
How did you two meet?
Here and there, Hollywood style, married to other people.
Henry Winkler, barbecue in his backyard, birthday party.
And then audition.
I auditioned to play Mary's husband in Cross Creek.
Did not get it.
Thank God.
Cause I was a mess and she wouldn't have even seen me.
And then later we made a movie together.
Oh, you did work together. Yeah.
We did.
I had just announced to everybody that would listen that I was done with love, that I look
like someone who would be good at love, but I'm actually terrible at love.
And I'm, I have two beautiful children.
I'm finished, finite, no more.
Then I work with him, then I fall in love. But that was 31
years ago. Happy to be wrong about it. Yeah, I couldn't bear to live alone. I'm not alone.
Oh my God. I can't stand my own company. But I think people grow spiritually or whatever in the real big way. They grow in
different ways. I have to grow in relationship. My growth comes from my relationship with Mary.
Yeah. I can't imagine. Yeah, emotionally, I mean, maturity and wisdom. Yeah.
Yeah.
And just following new paths together and inspiring each other.
You know something I've noticed hitting 99, when you get to a certain age, you suddenly
realize you can nail people after a couple of sentences.
I can tell you who somebody is on meeting them.
There are certain mannerisms and I don't know what it is,
but I can nail somebody almost immediately.
And it comes, I think, with age, dealing with people.
It's interesting.
You don't think you were able to do that
when you were younger?
No.
Yeah.
No, I got taken quite a lot.
You're very naive and innocent. Yeah.
Which is good. It's good to be that way. I'm getting pretty suspicious these days.
Can I ask a question about you and another one of my heroes, Fred Astaire? Yeah, he came to visit me on the set of Bye Bye Birdie. I had on my best suit and I've got a
picture with him where I look like Emmett Kelly next to him. He was so well tailored, but he liked my
dancing and just blew me away that I was an amateur. He said, I like the way you move. Oh my God.
That must have meant the world. You heard him talk on the radio about that.
Yeah. And yeah, I heard him on the radio say he liked the kid from- West Side Story. West Side Story. Yeah. And yeah, I heard him on the radio say he liked the kid from...
West Side Story. West Side Story, yeah. And he said,
I like the way Dick Van Dyke moved. I wish I had that recording.
And now we're trying to find it. I had a letter that somebody sent me,
a friend of Charlie Chaplin's, in the middle of it he said, have you seen Dick Van Dyke?
in which in the middle of it he said, have you seen Dick Van Dyke? Charlie Chaplin.
That's amazing. I've got that pin on the wall. You have Stan Laurel letters too of him talking. Oh yeah, letters from Stan.
We should have a music. Our house is too small. I have so many things that are cool like that.
many things that cool like that. Yeah. You remember Jacques Tati? Yes. Yes, French. I was working in Paris and I kept trying to find him. I wanted to meet him and they said he was a
hermit that he would come into a drug store and take some candy and leave and not pay for it.
He was known for that. Wow. And they just let him, but he was, I couldn't find him. He was like a shadow. I never got to meet him.
The movies were like Mr. Hooley's holiday or something.
Hooley's holiday.
Yes.
And he wouldn't speak.
Never spoke.
Yeah.
Yeah, it just blew me away. He was so good.
Did you ever see Marcel Marceau?
Yes. When he was working down in the village, he was appearing. I made every Wednesday matinee,
every one. I'd go back and watch him. Finally got to meet him, got an ass back stage and he turned
into Hanny Youngman. It's like a release for him.
But we were going to do an hour mime show together and he died on me.
We were going to all do mime.
I was so excited about it just to be put up there with him.
And he died at a rather young age.
What else did I miss? you know, put up there with him. And he died at a rather young age.
And I missed it. What else did I miss?
People dying on me all the time.
Not much.
I would say-
You're all living with everybody.
It is when we do Odd Couple.
We're gonna do Odd Couple.
It had died on me.
Odd Asner.
Oh, that would have been so good.
Matt was one of your favorite people working with him.
I loved him.
I worked with him a few times.
Yeah.
He was so great. Yeah. We did Elf together. He was Santa Claus in Elf.
Well, talk a little bit, can we ask you about a couple of movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,
which I love. Was that a wonderful experience? Oh, yeah. Mary Poppins took inside of four months, and Shitty Bang Bang took over a year.
We had to leave England and go to Europe just to get some sun.
It was raining too much.
Too much rain and clouds. You couldn't get any light. So we're going through what's supposed to be the English countryside and their
vineyards, the French vineyards actually.
We did all that shooting in France.
Yeah, it took forever to do, but I loved every minute of it.
I just loved it.
Lionel.
Oh, Jeffries, Lionel Jeffries, one of my heroes.
We have such a friendship, but he was younger than me.
He played my father and he was five years younger.
Was he really?
Oh my goodness.
Great cast, a lot of fun.
Really good cast.
That car was a big heavy thing.
It had a four cylinder engine in it.
So you really couldn't get going very good.
Was that a real car? Oh yeah. There's
a couple of them around the country now. Yeah, it was perfect, just beautiful.
Well, the one from the special was a replica. There's a lot of replicas.
People just make it. Oh yeah, it was done right down at the outpost. Everything was beautiful.
But can they go into the ocean like that?
Yeah.
It was about four cylinders and it took forever to get going.
But once we did, it was fun.
You know, that special, the CBS special where we celebrated you, but it was so
amazing to see all the actors there.
We're so excited to be there, to be able to either perform for you or talk to you
or acknowledge you in some way.
You have so many people whose lives you delighted and changed, but also actors
who wanted to emulate you and your movement, your voice,
your spirit. Your spirit that you put out, Dick, is just that energy of love and interest.
It comes from doing what you love to do, you know, if you're having a good time. Everything
I did, I didn't do anything where I really was miserable. You know, Bye Bye Birdie, the movie was kind of a drag
because we couldn't make it what it had been.
So did you, can I ask,
because that's the second time you've said that,
was your part messed with?
Was it shortened?
Was it, why was it so different
that you didn't like it as much as the...
Well, the Ann Marl my part was rather small on
Broadway and they wrote special songs for her and
took other songs out and it just changed the whole
pitch of everything.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Paul was really pissed all the time, but that
was just kind of his nature.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's, I didn't get to see the play,
but it was a wonderful movie.
A lot of people liked the movie,
and it makes me laugh when people come up to him
because I know how much he doesn't like it.
Yeah.
But if people like it, so just-
I'm one of those people.
Yeah, just go with it.
And Mary Poppins, so where was Mary Poppins? Was that after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
No, it was before.
It was before.
Yeah, that's how Cubby Brockley came to me about Chitty after I'd done Poppins,
thinking I'd be good for the part. And I said, have you heard my British? Actually,
when Sean Connery left the Bond series,
Cubby wanted me to play it.
That's what I was gonna ask.
Why don't you be Bond?
You've been a great Bond.
I said, have you heard my British accent?
He said, click.
I love that you said that your dialogue coach for that
was Irish and his accent wasn't any better.
Pat O'Malley. Pat O'Malley.
Pat O'Malley, who had a thick Irish accent. He came into my house one night after dinner
for a couple of hours and that was it. That was it. Americans tease me a lot, but strangely enough,
the British don't. They tease me a little bit, you know, because it was no accent of any kind.
It was charming.
It was still just one of the glorious performances.
Oh my God.
It was so good.
Singing the dancing two roles, you did two roles that people sometimes don't even know that he was the...
I love that story too, to play the older...
The old man.
In the bank.
The banker.
The banker.
Yeah.
To play that part, which you came to the director or the producer and said, I think I should
play it.
Why don't you let me?
No.
Walt Disney.
Yeah, Walt Disney.
That's it.
You spoke to Walt Disney and he said no.
And then you said, well, I'll do it for nothing.
It'll be free. Right. And he said no. And then he said, well, I'll do it for nothing. It'll be free.
And he said, no.
And then he said, I'll pay you $7,000.
Okay.
Yeah.
But I did a screen test.
I made myself up and got out in front of what was
the bank's house and sang a little song.
I think what sold it, at the end of the song,
I went over
and pretended to pee in the bushes.
That broke all, walled up.
He just looked at me, I think that gave me the part.
Yeah, and then I did an old man in what?
Mary Poppins Returns?
Yeah, that's right.
You pay a lot of money.
With Emily, that one?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, she's so great.
Yeah, but I had been working with a young couple.
Oh, Dee Dee Wood and Mark.
Dee Dee Wood and Mark.
A couple had been working with me on the show
for a couple of dance numbers.
And I mentioned them to Walt.
He said, do you know anybody?
I said, I think these kids are good.
So we hired them.
They got, they did that.
And then they did Shitty Bang Bang with me.
Wow. And then the Sherman Bang with me. Wow.
And then the Sherman brothers wrote both.
Right.
And they came up with so many, wore me out.
And was working with Julie just glorious.
She is sweetheart.
But a lady through and through, she really is a British lady.
She doesn't let down her hair very often.
I fear she does.
I'm sure she does. The opening number in Shitty, me old bamboo,
we have to jump over the stick and die. Every take, one guy would miss. We did 24 or 5 takes.
Wow.
And I made it every time.
And these guys, they were half my age, but
you'll notice that I catch it on my heel and
I push it through because I knew I couldn't do
another one.
And we just watched that this morning and I
think it's one take.
It's just one frame.
That whole dance, they don't cut into it. No, they don't cut. It's just you frame. That whole dance, they don't cut into it.
No, they don't cut.
It's just you dancing.
So you had done it 22 more times than the one we saw. That was the 23rd day.
I can't imagine. People should watch it.
We're on the stage and we're doing a twist thing, two of the dancers actually split something
doing that step. This with the leg going like, yeah, I can't say no, but then the thing where you,
they go back and forth and you're jumping. I love that stuff. I just loved it. Yeah.
I don't know why you didn't study dancing when I was a kid. You wrote that that was the hardest
dance you'd ever. Oh yeah. I think it's better that you didn't
because you're unique.
If you would have trained,
they would have said, stop doing that.
You're right.
And you would have been like everybody else.
I would have done it the right way.
So it's better that you didn't.
Yeah.
Tell me about this gentleman behind us.
It's peering over your shoulder.
How did you?
I'm never that tall.
How did you get that?
Was that in the movie or no?
This is from the movie ride, the Disney world.
Oh, and they were closing it down and they asked us if we wanted his chimney
suede, we were like, yes.
You bet I did.
Nice.
And it came with a chimney and he said, well, and he was sitting on the chimney
and we said, well, we have nowhere to put that. So we got it made in a chip with a chimney. And he said, well, and he was sitting on the chimney and we said, well, we can't,
we have nowhere to put that.
So we got it made into a standing.
There he is.
I know we said we'd only be here for a little while, but I have to mention, uh,
a show I was doing called Becker where you played, came in and played my father.
Oh my God, that's right.
And it was, you know I worship you and I told
you you were the beginning of this. It was even before I started acting that I saw you
trip over the island. Oh my. But then you played my father and I think the rest of the
cast absolutely sucked that week because we never got to rehearse. We just asked you questions.
Tell us more stories.
Tell us more stories.
Oh really? Is that what we did?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just had my memory.
That's right.
We did do a show.
Yeah.
Can you believe that?
I never saw him more excited, more moved, more honored than the week
he got to work with you.
Oh my God.
You know, the funny thing is you get to an age when you really don't care how you look anymore.
You have to keep in mind, I might get a job.
So I have to keep trimming the beard and trying
to look nice.
We only lose weight and get into shape and really
exercise when there's a movie part that just came
around the corner.
Then it's like, oh boy.
You really whip it.
That's right. But a lot of people are just so stiff and everything from not moving. And it's so easy. Getting the water. Did you see my slide out there?
Mary spotted it right away. Yeah, I love the water slide by the way.
Oh, my grandkids go crazy. I bet.
Because it's fast.
It zooms them.
Very fast, yeah.
Yeah.
Let me ask you one more thing about, I can't imagine outliving all your friends.
I know the answer to why you're so happy and cheerful.
It's you, Arlene, would be my guess.
Exactly.
But it must be hard not to be depressed
about loss and grief.
Yeah.
Every one of them, all my guys from my
hometown are gone.
Everybody I knew here, all my buddies are
gone, everyone.
Bob Newhart was the last.
And there's just nobody to even pick up
the phone and call.
Yeah, I hate that.
So I'm trying to make younger friends.
You got two here.
I don't know how younger we are.
Not that much younger.
Was it hard when you were first together for you with the age difference?
Not so much what you felt, but what people projected onto you.
I feel like everyone was happy about it.
It was weird how it, I think if it wasn't Dick Van Dyke,
he's kind of an easy sell, I don't know.
And he's so youthful anyway.
And people were happy for him.
Happy for him, yeah.
So it was, they wanted to see him happy. and I don't know, just, it never really was
a big issue.
Yeah.
Thank God.
I mean, I was terrified when it came out.
I think there was one article when he was doing his Lucky Life tour and there was like
a mention of me.
I was like, oh my God.
I was just always like thinking it was going to be all this bad.
Um,
well, I tell you from, I'm so happy for my friend, Dick Van Dyke that you are in
his life.
I don't feel, you know, not sad, but whatever in any shape or form.
It's so nice to know, you know, and experience it today.
I get my coffee in bed every morning. Hey, so does she. It's so nice to know and experience it today.
I get my coffee in bed every morning. Hey, soda shake.
So do I.
Soda shake.
It's a small thing that is very important, isn't it?
I say thank you. It means a lot.
Every single cup of coffee I'm so grateful for.
I never let it slide.
Are you black or do you like a little sweet?
I like sugar in it. Five cubes of sugar. Whoa. I a little sweet? I like sugar.
Five cubes of sugar. Whoa.
I like my sugar. And a little oat milk or creamer or what?
No. Just black, just sugar and black.
Yeah. Great.
You had to come by on Halloween. You really should.
Oh my gosh, it sounds like it. It's such fun.
You can go crazy, yeah. You can be a monster if you want.
Have you ever been in a horror movie either one of you?
I did the original Creep Show. You did? Yeah. Stephen King, George Romero.
And I get drowned in the water by Leslie Nielsen. Oh, wow. Leslie Nielsen who had, by the drowned in the water by Leslie, Leslie
Nielsen, Leslie Nielsen who had, by the way, as an
real in life had a handheld, uh, pardon my,
whatever fart machine.
Yes.
I heard about this.
And he was relentless.
We actually got asked to get off a plane because
we were sitting in first class and we had been
boarded first and
every person who came by, he'd squeeze off a handheld fart. And finally, and he was asked
to stop and he wouldn't, so we were asked to get off the plane. Deadly Moray Head.
I'd heard that story. Yeah. Deadly Moray Head.
He was a guy who wasn't really funny, but they made him funny.
Oh my God. Airplane is one of the best movies. Airplane.
And the second one was, whew, Airplane 2 was nothing. And the first one was hysterical.
You still watch it and see new things in it.
Which is great. We never have any company or anything.
Yeah, it's so nice.
It's wonderful. You made our day.
Well, you made our year because this was really special. So you're not that far
away. Oh, yeah. No. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, you got to come by more often. Yeah. Do you imbibe alcohol
still or no? No. What am I saying? I just did that whole thing. Well, we don't either. Been there,
done that. Look at all the alcohol we have here. People keep giving us. We have booze here. Yeah. Would you like a little drinky Dick? Just a little bit.
Right. Can't believe that. He won't hurt you. You have, but you have drank a little wine.
That'll be the edit. You have had a little wine like if he wants a little, but he does, he's
beyond addiction. Not to worry. That just was edited out.
Not to worry, that just was edited out. Anyway, and then take this back to rehab.
I had rehab in a place downtown called the...
Midnight Mission.
Midnight Mission, which is one of the best in the world. I spent a couple of weeks there in
Soberta and I used to go down a lot and visit the people, but since COVID, I've gotten a little leery about that. I used to go
just table hop on Sunday to pass out candies. It's a homeless sign.
Yeah, mostly homeless, of which there are a lot more. There are people with kids living in their
cars. You don't know how many of those there are. It's insane. I remember the
Depression. You know, there are a lot of guys we call tramps come to the back door for a hand out,
but there weren't that many of them. They all hung out down at the railroad tracks. But there's so
many more now than there ever were at the Depression. Wasn't your grandfather a railroad man?
He worked in the shop at the CNDA Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad.
And he was slight like I am, but he had huge forearms from working things.
I thought they got Popeye from him.
Because I saw Popeye, I said, it's grandpa.
He was a slight little man and big arms from all that
kind of work.
Right.
He was your biggest influence.
On me, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I had a lot of grandparents and great grandparents on both sides, a lot of long
lived people. And I'm the one that's lived the longest now.
Wow.
My mom made it just short of 96. So yeah, I've got them all beat.
LS. Your background, is it from Holland?
KS. The Netherlands.
LS. Yeah.
KS. Yeah.
LS. Same as me. Yes, steam virgin is too.
KS. Yeah, I went to Amsterdam once and the phone book is nothing but Van Dyke.
LS. And you say you're half Irish, is that what you say?
KS. McCord. That's Irish, isn't it? LS. Sounds right to me. half Irish. Is that what you say? McCord.
That's why Irish isn't it?
Sounds right to me.
Or my mother's made me.
Well, I'm a hundred percent both of my, all my
family's from Ireland and you always say that
you're half Irish.
M A C is Scottish and just MC I think is Irish.
I think.
Oh, now you're, you're backing up on your claims.
Well, I'm half Irish.
You've been so generous with us.
Thank you both.
I was talking about myself.
Thank you both.
Hey, we're all so happy that we got to be here.
We'll be right back after these words. That was astounding.
As you heard, he's been one of my heroes since I first got introduced to the idea of acting
at all.
So, that was just remarkable.
And I'm so glad we got to share it together.
What was it like for you?
That was a privilege, just a delight. I loved it. Thank you for including me.
Thank you Team Coco and I love that experience. I appreciate it. Did you love
it so much you might come back and do that again? Maybe, yeah. Okay we got a
maybe. I'll go with that. Um, once again, please consider giving to world central kitchen and you can do that by visiting
wck.org. So thank you. That was fun.
Thank you.
That's it for this episode. Hello to Woody.
And thanks to our friends at team Coco. As always,
you can subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app and give us a great
rating if you're in
the mood and a review on Apple podcasts if you have some time.
Thank you very much.
See you right back here next week where everybody knows your name.
Bye, Woody.
Bye, everyone.
Bye, Woody.
You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody
Harrelson, sometimes.
The show is produced by me, Nick Leal.
Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself.
Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer.
Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca.
Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.
Research by Alissa Grawl.
Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Vagista.
Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson,
Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen,
and John Osborne. Special thanks to
Willie Navarrete. We'll have more for you
next time, where everybody knows your name.
We have to do a sign off here.
Don't we say goodbye?
Dick, you start the sign-offs.
How do you do it?
I don't know.
That's why I'm making you start.
Yeah.
I'm my days in radio where this is a sign off 7330.