'Dick Van Dyke Show' Wins 2011 Television Critics Association Award

THE Dick Van Dyke SHOW was been selected as a 2011 Television Critics Association Award winner. The series was the top vote getter in the category of "Heritage Award." The TCA presents this prestigious award to one long-standing program that has culturally or socially impacted society. Carol Reiner, Larry Mathews and he first Lady of Las Vegas, Rose Marie, were on hand to accept the honor. "Sheldon Leonard told me that if you want the best, to get Rose Marie," recalled Carl Reiner. Ms. Marie said, "When they first approached me about being part of The Dick Van Dyke Show, I said "What's a Dick Van Dyke?"

One of entertainment's longest and most fascinating careers began at the age of 3 and was billed as Baby Rose Marie. She starred in several of the earliest talking films, beginning with a 1929 short, Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder, which was screened in theaters before feature films such as "The Jazz Singer." In 1946, when Las Vegas opened its first big-time casino hotel, The Flamingo, Rose Marie was hired by Benjamin "Bugsy" Segal as one of the headliners, along with Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat. She had a brief Broadway career in Top Banana with Phil Silvers and in 1960, she accepted her first regular role on "My Sister Eileen." The next year, "The Dick Van Dyke Show" premiered and Rose Marie became a household name. After five seasons, she moved to "The Doris Day Show." She is the only original member of the hit game show "Hollywood Squares" to have worked on all of its reincarnations and its hosts. She toured extensively with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell & Margaret Whiting in 4 Girls 4 and has released her best selling memoirs "Hold The Roses." In 2009, a selection of items from Rose Marie's career was inducted into the Smithsonian Institutes first permanent Entertainment Exhibit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Fsf1DQ_OE

The Television Critics Association has been recognizing outstanding television programming, honoring both actor and producers for more than 26 years. The TCA's annual awards show is a non-televised and invitation-only event that only features the winners of each category and not the finalists.

The TCA Awards are Saturday, August 6 in the ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel (9876 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, California). The Awards celebration begins with a pre-reception at 7:00 PM and the Awards ceremony starts promptly at 8:00 PM and ends at 9:00 PM. The dress for the evening is cocktail attire. Each winner is allowed to bring one guest to the Awards.

The TCA is a non-profit organization. The Television Critics Association represents more than 220 journalists writing about television for print and on line outlets in the United States and Canada. Membership in the Television Critics Association is open to full-time TV writers at newspapers, magazines, trade publications, news wire services, news syndicates, and text-based Internet news organizations. The Television Critics Association exists to serve its membership of full-time TV critics, most of whom do not live near the entertainment capitals of Los Angeles and New York. The twice-yearly TCA press tour, then, represents an unparalleled opportunity to gain access to the people who make television. The reporting our members do at press tour creates story material year-round as well as valuable face-to-face contacts with network executives, producers and actors. As such, we limit membership in the TCA to those journalists who can be served by this primary mission.