Exclusive: MARY POPPINS Star Karen Dotrice and Director John Scheinfeld Honor Dick Van Dyke in New PBS Documentary

More than 60 years after their first encounter, Karen Dotrice still remembers her first meeting with Dick Van Dyke. “He was bending over, and the first thing I saw was his backside because he was having a plaster cast made of it,” the Mary Poppins star recalled during an interview with BroadwayWorld. “[It] was about to happen to me too, so that they could attach wires onto the plaster cast under our costumes for the flying sequences."

Dotrice, who played the young Jane Banks in the 1964 film, is one of the featured voices in the new PBS documentary, Starring Dick Van Dyke, which airs tonight in honor of the actor’s upcoming 100th birthday. Other interviewees include fellow Poppins co-star Julie Andrews, as well as other screen legends like Carol Burnett, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Ted Danson, and Conan O’Brien. 

"I've done films on a lot of famous people, and almost always, there are some who have something negative to say about the subject. And this is one example where no one had a negative thing to say about Dick," director John Scheinfeld told BroadwayWorld. A fan of Van Dyke since he was a kid, the filmmaker took it upon himself to make this movie after realizing there was no definitive documentary about the celebrated performer

Throughout his career of over eight decades, Dick Van Dyke has appeared in nearly every medium in the entertainment industry. From radio to Broadway to TV and film, he has seemingly done it all, consistently reinventing himself with each project. This idea became the central theme of the film, says Scheinfeld. "He pushed the envelope and did many different things. So the challenge became, ‘What are those critical events in each of the media where he reinvented himself?’ And then the secondary challenge (and not a small one) is ‘Do we have the audiovisual material with which to illustrate those moments?’"

With these challenges in mind, Scheinfeld and his team began the "detective work" of tracking down material that would showcase different aspects of Van Dyke's career, much of which was rare and little-seen by the public. They struck gold, with findings that included a 1955 kinescope of his CBS audition and his very first national television appearance on Toast of the Town, both of which are included in the documentary.

Another piece of rare material was from the Broadway revue The Girls Against the Boys, in which Van Dyke starred before landing his Tony Award-winning role in Bye Bye Birdie. "The producer of the show was a guy named Albert Selden, and when he passed, he donated all of his material to Yale," Scheinfeld explained. "...the archivist there went in, and sure enough, he had scrapbooks in which there were four photographs of Dick in this show, and they're all in our film." 

Fans of the actor know him for his playfulness onscreen, a quality on display as Rob Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bert in Mary Poppins. But Dotrice can attest that the man is just as delightful behind-the-scenes as well, something she saw firsthand during the filming of Mary Poppins. "He’s just a naughty boy. [Matthew Garber] looked like a little saint in comparison to Dick Van Dyke... Everything is a laugh with him, which is fabulous when you're a child to work with," she said, highlighting the famous tea party scene as a moment when he was particularly mischievous.

Dotrice likens Van Dyke to Walt Disney himself, both of whom she says display a "genuineness" that may stem from their respective Midwestern roots. "They get through things in a very real way. And there's never been airs or graces with Dick.... He's just a kind man. We were working on that movie, Mary Poppins, for months and months and months, and I never saw him lose his temper."

In addition to highlighting his wide-spanning career, the film also dives into some of his struggles, including his alchoholism that he shared with the public in the 1970s. Though Dotrice has known Dick Van Dyke the man for years, she admitted that she learned a lot from watching the film. "I was just stunned [by] all of this information, all of his talents... watching [this project] just really rounded out my opinion of him, of being even more special than I thought."

After a successful sneak preview screening, Scheinfeld looks forward to people seeing the film and looking back at the many little-known facets of Dick Van Dyke, both in his storied career and his reputation as an all-around kind person to those who know him best. "It's been a wonderful thing to be able to go to work every day and laugh and smile because that's what Dick makes you do."

American Masters – Starring Dick Van Dyke will premiere nationwide Friday, December 12 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS, just ahead of Van Dyke’s 100th birthday on December 13.

Photo Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images