06/24/2026
He is 100 years old, still with us, still fighting stiffness with movement, and still going to the gym three times a week because Dick Van D**e has never known how to sit quietly while life is still playing music.
That one detail says almost everything about him. The body has slowed, the steps are smaller, and the easy bounce that once made him look weightless is no longer the same. But the spirit behind "The Dick Van D**e Show" (1961) and "Mary Poppins" (1964) is still awake, still playful, still looking for rhythm in an ordinary day. Dick has not hidden the truth of growing old. He has admitted that aging can make him feel “diminished,” not only in strength, but in the way the world itself becomes harder to reach.
He still gets invitations. People still want him at events, celebrations, and special nights where his presence would fill the room before he even speaks. But now travel is exhausting. New York and Chicago are no longer simple places on a schedule. They are long trips, heavy days, and physical costs he has to measure carefully. So he has had to say no to things he once might have loved. These days, much of the world comes to him at home, and there is something tender in that picture.
The most human part is how honestly he describes it. Dick has joked about becoming “a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer,” almost like he is naming a character in an old comedy bit. But underneath the joke is a very real old-age truth. His feet trouble him. His eyesight is weaker. Hearing aids help, but they do not make every conversation easy. A group of people talking at once can become confusing, even for a man who spent a lifetime reading rooms with perfect timing.
Even food has become part of the comedy and the frustration. He has talked about spilling things, wearing stained shirts, and dealing with those small daily embarrassments that come with age. A spot on the shirt can become a whole moment. Arlene Silver, his wife, may notice it before they leave the house, and Dick can still turn the scene into a laugh. That is the gift he has kept. He does not pretend old age is graceful every minute, but he also refuses to hand it the final joke.
His biggest act of defiance is the gym. Dick tries to go three times a week, because he knows what happens when he misses too many days. Stiffness starts creeping in. The body starts closing up. The legs feel less cooperative. For many people, that would be the reason to stop. For him, it is the reason to show up again.
His routine has a kind of quiet discipline. He starts on the sit-up machine, then moves through the circuit. The leg machines matter to him most. He has called his legs his “cherished possessions,” and that phrase feels especially moving from a man whose whole career carried so much dance, movement, balance, and comic physical magic. His legs are not just muscles to him. They are memory. They are independence. They are proof that some part of him is still pushing back.
After the legs, he works the upper body. Nothing about it feels like vanity. It feels like survival with a smile. He is not trying to be young again. He is trying to stay open to the day. He is trying to keep enough strength to move, sing, laugh, visit, and remain part of the living world instead of watching it from a chair.
And music still follows him. That may be the most Dick Van D**e part of all. He can turn a gym day into something brighter than exercise. A machine becomes a beat. A breath becomes a lyric. A small movement becomes a reminder that the performer inside him never packed up and left. The outside body may be old, but inside, he still seems to hear the song.
Arlene is the love story inside this old-age fight. Dick has said she keeps him feeling “up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed,” and that last word carries real weight. Needed is not just romantic. Needed means someone is waiting for you to get up. Someone wants your joke, your smile, your presence, your voice at the table. For him, Arlene is not only companionship. She is energy, movement, and light.
That is why this chapter does not feel tragic. It feels honest and stubbornly alive. Dick Van D**e can admit the body is changing. He can laugh at the shuffle, fight the stiffness, spill the food, miss the trip, and still show up for the gym, the music, the marriage, and the day.
His body slowed down, but his spirit still dances.
