Dick Van Dyke is slowing down at age 99.
The TV icon, who turns 100 on Dec. 13, opened up about the current state of his health in a new essay for The Times.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” Van Dyke said.
“I get invites to events or offers for gigs in New York or Chicago, but that kind of travel takes so much out of me that I have to say no,” the “Mary Poppins” star continued. “Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house.”
Van Dyke also admitted that his “physical deterioration” reminds him of some of the older character he’s portrayed.
“Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer,” he shared. “I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible.”
Van Dyke went on, “Those fake old-timers smacked their dentures. I chew nicotine gum, all day long — still, decades after I quit smoking! My sight is so bad now that origami is out of the question. I have trouble following group conversations and complain frequently about my hearing aids, though I would never refer to them as ear trumpets.”
Eating has also become difficult for the Emmy Award winner, who is cared for by his much-younger wife, Arlene Silver, 54.
“At mealtime I spill stuff, and when my wife, Arlene, asks me to put on an unstained shirt before we go out, I get impatient,” he explained. “‘It’s got blueberry all over it,’ she’ll say. ‘Polka dots are in again!’ I’ll reply.”
“But the superficial stuff, the physical decay, is about the only thing I share with the old guys I played way back when,” Van Dyke added. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”
In addition, the “Murder 101” star credited Silver with helping him live this long.
“Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch,” he stated. “Arlene is half my age, and she makes me feel somewhere between two thirds and three quarters my age, which is still saying a lot. Every day she finds a new way to keep me up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed.”
And despite being almost 100, Van Dyke still goes to the gym three times a week.
“I don’t know why this is something I still want to do but it is,” he said. “I’m not a ‘wake up and go back to bed’ type just yet, unless it’s cold and rainy. If I miss too many gym days, I really can feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there. If I let that set in, well, God help me.”
“At the gym I usually do a circuit, going from one machine to the next without a break, in a circle,” the “Bye Bye Birdie” star continued. “I start with the sit-up machine. Arlene says I could do 500 but that might be exaggerating. Then I do all the leg machines religiously because my legs are two of my most cherished possessions. And then the upper body.”
Van Dyke also said that music is “the secret ingredient” to staying consistent with his health regiment.
“Most of my humming and singing really happens when I’m going from one machine to another,” he shared. “By ‘going’ I mean dancing. You heard me, dancing! And if I’m really feeling it, I’m no quiet warbler; I’m a Broadway belter.”
