Dick Van Dyke, 99, Shares Two Habits to Avoid for Longevity

Dick Van Dyke turns 100 on December 13, and he still goes to the gym three times a week. The man who danced across rooftops in Mary Poppins and charmed audiences in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has outlived most of his generation, and he thinks he knows why. In recent interviews and a new book called “100 Rules for Living to 100,” Van Dyke shared the habits he believes kept him alive this long. No exotic supplements or expensive treatments. His advice centers on quitting two substances decades ago and refusing to let anger and resentment take hold of his life.

A Career Spanning Seven Decades

Van Dyke broke through on Broadway in 1960 with Bye Bye Birdie, winning a Tony Award, and that success led to The Dick Van Dyke Show the following year. The sitcom ran for five seasons and earned him multiple Emmys. Mary Poppins followed in 1964, then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968. He kept working through Diagnosis: Murder and well into his 90s, dancing barefoot in Coldplay’s “All My Love” music video at 98. Over his career, he’s collected six Emmys, a Tony, a Grammy, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But what stands out more is simply how long he’s been alive. Van Dyke was born during the Coolidge administration and still remembers the ice man from his childhood making deliveries in a horse-drawn wagon. “I’m a super-old,” he joked in an interview with the New York Times.

He Wasn’t Always This Healthy

Van Dyke battled alcoholism for years and smoked heavily through much of his adult life, and he didn’t recognize the problem until middle age. “If I liked something, I was going to overdo it,” he shared at a recent Vandy High Tea event at his Malibu home. That realization forced him to take a hard look at the habits wearing him down when he met Walt Disney in the early ’60s and saw firsthand where heavy smoking leads. “He was a wonderful guy. He just smoked too much! Doggone,” Van Dyke said. He’s probably the last person alive to have worked with Disney.

Quitting Smoking and Alcohol

Once Van Dyke recognized the problem, he didn’t try to moderate. He quit entirely. “I got rid of booze and cigarettes and all that stuff, which is probably why I’m still here,” he told attendees at the Malibu event. In 1972, he checked himself into a hospital to treat alcoholism. And while quitting drinking was brutal, cigarettes were “twice as hard” to give up.

“It was much worse than the alcohol,” Van Dyke said on the Really No Really podcast in 2023, admitting it took “forever” to finally stop. “I’m still chewing the nicotine gum. It’s been 15 years, I think.” The decision came decades ago, but he believes it’s the single biggest reason he made it to 99. Research backs him up. Studies consistently show that quitting smoking at any age adds years to life expectancy, and the benefits compound over time.

A Cautionary Tale Close to Home

Van Dyke watched what anger did to his father, Loren Wayne Van Dyke, who carried frustration and resentment with him constantly. “My father was constantly upset by the state of things in his life, and it did take him at 73 years old,” Van Dyke told People. He saw what chronic negativity does to a body when it’s someone you love. And he decided he wouldn’t follow the same path. His father died more than 25 years younger than Van Dyke is now, and that gap reinforced something Van Dyke came to believe early. Bitterness is deadly.

Why He Refuses to Hate

Anger and hate are the emotions he’s worked hardest to avoid, and he’d already seen what happens when you don’t. “I’ve always thought that anger is one thing that eats up a person’s insides, and hate,” he said. “And I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate. I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going.” The science backs him up.

A Duke University study found that people prone to anger had C-reactive protein levels two to three times higher than calmer peers. CRP is a protein your liver releases when there’s inflammation in the body, and when it stays elevated, it damages blood vessels and hardens arteries over time. That doesn’t mean he never disliked anyone, just that he kept the distinction clear. You can disagree with someone without letting it consume you.

Stubbornly Refusing to Give In

“I’ve made it to 99 in no small part because I have stubbornly refused to give in to the bad stuff in life,” Van Dyke wrote in an essay for The Sunday Times. He means failures and personal losses, the loneliness and physical pain that come with aging. “That stuff is real, but I have not let it define me,” he continued. “Instead, for the vast majority of my years, I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living. Being alive has been doing life, not like a job but rather like a giant playground.” What fills that playground comes down to three things: romance, doing what he loves, and laughing as much as possible. He told People he never wakes up in a bad mood.

Still Going to the Gym at 99

Van Dyke still hits the gym three times a week, and he calls it his “secret weapon.” His routine is circuit training, starting with sit-ups. “Arlene says I could do 500, but that might be exaggerating,” he wrote in his Sunday Times essay. “Then I do all the leg machines religiously because my legs are two of my most cherished possessions. And then the upper body.” He doesn’t always feel like going, so he motivates himself with rewards like a post-workout nap. “By the end, I’m in a sweaty rush, the blood flowing from fingertips to toes, and my spirits are soaring,” he wrote. In between gym days, he does yoga and stretching to stay flexible.

Dancing as Medicine

As people age, more “important” things crowd out the instinct to be playful, and Van Dyke refused to let that happen. For him, playfulness means finding small moments of fun wherever you are, whether that’s cracking jokes during a strained family visit or making a game out of a dreaded chore. “As all these little experiences accumulate, your whole approach to living can change. Your whole self becomes buoyant!” he wrote in his Sunday Times essay.

He still finds ways to move. Last year, he danced barefoot and sang with Chris Martin in the Coldplay music video, and for 25 years, he’s sung with an a cappella group called the Vantastix, where every other member is decades younger. “When we sing, my heart just soars. Because I’m still doing what I love,” he said. For him, staying active isn’t just about fitness. It’s about staying connected to joy.

What He Eats

In his 2015 book “Keep Moving,” Van Dyke wrote that good habits matter, but he’s never been overly strict. His philosophy is simple: eat light and fresh, but treat yourself to dessert at the end of every day. He avoids fast food and processed foods, limits meat to about once a week, and chooses fish and plant-based proteins over red meat. Blueberries show up every morning because he’s eaten them for years for their antioxidants, and leafy greens make a regular appearance, too.

His wife, Arlene, shared his typical breakfast on Instagram: two eggs cooked over medium, toasted potato bread with butter and jam, and a cup of coffee. Nothing about this is rigid. He just leans toward fresh, whole foods while leaving room for what he enjoys. But he does have one indulgence, five lumps of sugar in that morning coffee. “Yes, you heard that right,” he told the New York Times.

The Ice Cream Every Night

The sugar in his coffee isn’t his only indulgence. “When I was a kid I said, ‘When I grow up I want to eat candy every night.’ I do eat ice cream every night,” he shared. Two scoops of Häagen-Dazs vanilla with chocolate syrup, every single night before bed. It sounds like it contradicts everything about eating fresh and light, but that’s the point. Strict diets fail because people can’t sustain them. A 2025 study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign published in Physiology & Behavior found that people who allowed themselves small portions of craved foods maintained healthier eating patterns long-term than those who cut them out entirely. He figured this out decades ago without reading the research.

His Marriage to Arlene

Van Dyke married Arlene Silver in 2012 when he was 86, and she was 40. They met at the 2006 SAG Awards, where she was working as a makeup artist, and she quickly became his soulmate. The age gap has never bothered either of them. “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,” he wrote in his Sunday Times essay.

They dance together in the mornings and keep each other laughing throughout the day, and she finds new ways to make him feel bright and hopeful and needed. He credits her with keeping him alive. “Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch,” he wrote. He told People that marrying her was the best decision he ever made. At 99, he’s still in love.

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The Physical Reality at 99

“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” Van Dyke wrote in The Sunday Times. He recently had to turn down gigs in Chicago and New York because the travel is too much, and almost all his visiting with friends now happens at his house. “Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer. I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible,” he admitted.Th

His sight has worsened to the point where origami is out of the question, and he has trouble following group conversations even with hearing aids. He spills on himself at meals and gets impatient when Arlene asks him to change his shirt before they go out. But on the inside, none of that defines him. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get,” he wrote about the old men he played decades ago. He says he feels about 13.

Every Friend Is Gone

“He’s outlived everybody,” his wife said at the Malibu event. “That’s the curse of living to almost 100.” Van Dyke told People he’s lost a lot of friends over the years, and there’s no getting around what that means. He had plans to remake The Odd Couple with Ed Asner. Two old friends playing Felix and Oscar one more time, but Asner died in 2021 before they could do it. “That would’ve been such fun,” he said. He feels every loss but refuses to let grief be the final word. His friend Mel Brooks is turning 100 next year. “I’m in the market for some 100-year-old friends,” Van Dyke joked to the New York Times.

No Fear of Death

Living this long means knowing the end is close, and Van Dyke is fine with that. “When you expire, you expire,” he told People. “I don’t have any fear of death for some reason. I can’t explain that but I don’t.” He’s not being cavalier, he’s being honest. After 99 years of doing what he loves, surrounded by people he loves, there’s nothing left to dread. “I’ve had such a wonderfully full and exciting life. That I can’t complain,” he said. He still wakes up every morning feeling good and ready for whatever the day holds.

What He Wants to Be Remembered For

When interviewers ask about legacy, Dick Van Dyke deflects. He’s not concerned with personal remembrance because what matters is that his work continues to bring people joy long after he’s gone. If families still watch Mary Poppins together and kids still laugh at his physical comedy, that’s enough. “A wonderfully full and exciting life, that I can’t complain,” he said. No regrets, no bitterness, just satisfaction at a life spent doing what he loved. On December 13, he’ll blow out 100 candles and probably crack a joke about it. That attitude, more than any single habit, might be the real lesson.

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