Summary of Dick Van Dyke's Keep Moving


Book Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I did not want to waste my last year as an octogenarian sitting on the sidelines of life. I did not want to act my age. I did not want to act like someone my age should act. Old age is part fact, part state of mind, part luck, and wholly something best left for other people to ponder. #2 I have never felt old, and I have never celebrated my birthday. I believe that birthdays get scary as you march through your twenties. At thirty, you don’t know whether to celebrate the end of youth or the beginning of adulthood. #3 I was 65 when I started a a cappella singing group, the Vantastix, and we booked shows across the country. I was 75 when I finally said enough and stopped doing the series. Singing is my retirement. #4 The truth is that your teens and twenties are your plan A. At fifty, you’re assessing whether plan B or plan C or any of the other plans you hatched actually worked. Your sixties and seventies are an improvisation. There is no blueprint, and you spend a lot of time feeling grateful you’re still here.




Keep Moving


Book Description

Show-business legend Dick Van Dyke is living proof that life does get better the longer you live it. Who better to offer instruction, advice, and humor than someone who's entering his ninth decade with a jaunty two-step? Van Dyke isn't just a born song-and-dance man; his irrepressible belief in embracing the moment and unleashing his inner child has proved to be the ultimate elixir of youth. When he was injured during the filming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, his doctor warned him he'd be using a walker within seven years, but Dick performed a soft shoe right there and never looked back. In Keep Moving, Dick Van Dyke offers his own playful anecdotes and advice, as well as insights from his brother, actor Jerry Van Dyke; his friend and creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Carl Reiner; and other spirited friends and family. Whether he's describing the pleasure he takes in his habitual visits to the grocery store; how he met his late-in-life-love Arlene; or how he sprung back, livelier than ever, from a near-death experience, Dick's optimistic outlook is an invigorating tonic for anyone who needs a reminder that life should be lived with enthusiasm despite what the calendar says. "You don't have to act your age. You don't even have to feel it. And if it does attempt to elbow its way into your life, you do not have to pay attention. If I am out shopping and hear music playing in a store, I start to dance. If I want to sing, I sing. I read books and get excited about new ideas. I enjoy myself. I don't think about the way I am supposed to act at my age - or at any age. As far as I know, there is no manual for old age. There is no test you have to pass. There is no way you have to behave. There is no such thing as 'age appropriate.' When people ask my secret to staying youthful at an age when getting up and down from your chair on your own is considered an accomplishment, you know what I tell them? 'Keep moving.'" - Dick Van Dyke




The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book


Book Description

The first and only complete, fully authorized "biography" of one of TV's most beloved sitcoms, including the first complete viewer's guide to all 158 episodes, as well as special behind-the-scenes trivia and a full chapter concordance. 50 black and white photos.




My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business


Book Description

A heartfelt memoir from one of Hollywood's greatest icons Dick Van Dyke, indisputably one of the greats of the golden age of television, is admired and beloved by audiences the world over for his beaming smile, his physical dexterity, his impeccable comic timing, his ridiculous stunts, and his unforgettable screen roles. His trailblazing television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show (produced by Carl Reiner, who has written the foreword to this memoir), was one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s and introduced another major television star, Mary Tyler Moore. But Dick Van Dyke was also an enormously engaging movie star whose films, including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, have been discovered by a new generation of fans and are as beloved today as they were when they first appeared. A colorful, loving, richly detailed look at the decades of a multilayered life, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, will enthrall every generation of reader, from baby-boomers who recall when Rob Petrie became a household name, to all those still enchanted by Bert’s “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” This is a lively, heartwarming memoir of a performer who still thinks of himself as a “simple song-and-dance man,” but who is, in every sense of the word, a classic entertainer.




Mr. Finnegan's Giving Chest


Book Description

On Christmas Eve, with help from a mysterious toymaker and a magic box, a young girl learns about the spirit of giving.




Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted


Book Description

The behind-the-scenes story of the making of the classic television series offers insight into how the influential show reflected changing American perspectives and was a first situation comedy to employ numerous women as writers and producers.




Home Work


Book Description

In this New York Times bestselling follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews reflects on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films -- Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry -- from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, the end of her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, including Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews's trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.




After All


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller Audiences have long adored Mary Tyler Moore for her television persona as the quintessential girl-next-door, as well as for her strong performances on screen and stage. But what about the poignant doubts and inner strength that drove this versatile and courageous actress? After All is the candid, moving autobiography of the woman America fell in love with, and the icon she became. “Mesmerizing…Fans will love Moore’s behind-the-scenes reminiscences.” —San Francisco Chronicle Mary Tyler Moore was America's darling: actress, producer, star of the golden age of television. Her work on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show garnered multiple Emmys, followed by critical acclaim for her acting on Broadway and in film. Now, in her witty, candid, heartbreaking autobiography, Mary Tyler Moore tells all about the Dick Van Dyke nobody knows; Elvis, her sly, seductive co-star in Change of Habit; how Carl Reiner taught her to cry while being funny; Robert Redford's confession after casting her in Ordinary People; about then-First Lady Betty Ford's inebriated debut on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and years later, her phone call that saved Mary's life. After All is the exhilarating and moving story of this extraordinarily successful woman, a complex and creative star who hadn’t developed a legacy without much pain and reflection along the way. Mary spares nothing as she recounts her traumatic childhood, two failed marriages, her own alcoholism, the tragic death of her son, and her third, happy marriage to a cardiologist eighteen years her junior. Offering a firsthand overview of the television industry, and peppered with sharp anecdotes, the result is a remarkable narrative and a rare look at one the most enduring and admired stars of our time. Inspiring, poignant, and brutally frank, After All will touch every reader's heart and soul.




Albion's Seed


Book Description

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.




My Life is a Situation Comedy


Book Description

If you've watched TV in the last 50 years, you already love Bill Persky. He discovered Goldie Hawn, gave Kelsey Grammer his first television job, created the ground breaking TV series "That Girl" and won 5 Emmy Awards. Raising his three daughters as a single parent, Bill Persky's life has been its own never ending situation comedy helping him write The Dick Van Dyke Show, Welcome Back Kotter, Who's The Boss, Kate & Allie, Bill Cosby and Sid Caesar, this book is the sitcom he has lived. A wonderful inside look at television and life in the chaotic past 50 years. Among the marquee names that sparkled brightly in Persky's universe are Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Cosby, Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, Goldie Hawn, Peter Sellers, Susan St. James, Jane Curtin, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Tim Conway, Andy Williams, Cary Grant and The Smothers Brothers.