Comedian and actor Dick Van Dyke danced across rooftops more than 60 years ago in Mary Poppins. And he danced barefoot across his backyard last year in "All My Love," a Coldplay video that went viral on his 99th birthday. As he begins his second century on Saturday, it seems the right moment to remember the way he first came into our lives: in a six-year blaze of multimedia glory that began on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theater on April 14, 1960.
Now, the actor who has since apologised for the most atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema as chimney sweep Bert in the Disney classic has revealed he was in the running to play another UK icon on screen: James Bond. Speaking on the Today TV programme in the US, Van Dyke, who turns 100 next month, said that Bond producer Albert Broccoli approached him to ask if he fancied the role of the British spy in his first big screen outing.
