Happy 100th Birthday Dick Van Dyke
 

Today marks the centennial birthday for legendary comedian actor Dick Van Dyke. His career has spanned nearly 80 years in radio, Broadway, and television, many awards, including 6 Emmys, Grammy, Tony, Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement, Disney Legend, star on Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Television Hall Of Fame, and others. He has been a major influence and model to many other actors from multiple generations. Happy Centennial Birthday to a living legend from the Golden Age of Television.

He made it. Great.

Cor blimey Mary Poppins!

The man smoked cigarettes and drank heavily until his 50s. There is hope!

For some perspective, the dude’s been around for roughly a third of our national history. Think of the things he has seen. Biplanes to landing on the moon and, with luck, Mars.

In the end, it's all down to luck. I don't know if you're familiar with former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the guy was a maniacal chain smoker all his life and died just six weeks before his 97th birthday.

It's a combination of many factors: Diet, healthy habits(no smoking, no drugs and no heavy drinking, etc.), genetics and, as you said, also luck.

We all know one case or two of someone who smoked like a chimney or someone who drank a whole bottle of whiskey every night and yet, somehow, managed to live to ripe old age.

In my area alone I can think of this doctor who was a huge chain smoker. He died in his late 70s. I dunno what the cause of his death was, but I seriously doubt tobacco was what killed him in the end. Had he never smoked at all, then what? He'd have been immortal or some sh*t?

There's also this old man who works for a local funerary agency and I see him smoking outside the agency every single day during one his breaks. He must be in his 80s at this point because he was quite old already 20 years ago.

As for alcohol, there's always the resident drunkard in every single neighbourhood, town or village. And they usually don't die exactly young either. Apparently you can survive as an alcoholic for 20-30 years in a row, who would have guessed?

We spend a lot of time looking at those negative correlations to "longevity". Negative meaning those life habits that kills us early, and if we omit them then we could live longer.

But there is are a lot of "positive" life correlations too. The guy has a lot of financial resources, he has a family who, by default experiences fewer stresses because of his success, and so on. That translates into longevity as well.

I get your point - I'm just adding to it by saying that Dick Van Dyke's age is a product of total-sum life. I mean he was a skinny dancer his entire life too. Very unlikely that he had any "fat phases" and so on.

There's just a lot going on when people live that long.

Dick's Mary Poppins costar Glynis Johns apparently smoked a good deal too in her younger years, and she also made it to 100.

Glad he made it after all!

Happy 100th birthday to a great entertainer!

I'm a huge fan of Dick Van Dyke. I think The Dick Van Dyke Show is one of the best sitcoms of all time and also one of my favorites. Happy 100th Birthday to Dick Van Dyke!

It's weird to think most of today's generation of 20 year olds has no idea who he is.

“That one old guy from the Night at the Museum movies!”