A Lot of Writin' To Do: Dick Van Dyke to Pen a Memoir

Rubber-limbed comic Dick Van Dyke is writing an autobiography, set to hit shelves in fall 2010 from Random House imprint Harmony Books.

The octogenarian star’s career spans stage, screen and TV, including his 1960 Tony-winning turn in Broadway’s original Bye Bye Birdie (a role he reprised in the 1963 movie); his cockney chimney sweep opposite Julie Andrews’ airborne nanny in 1964’sMary Poppins and his kooky Caractacus Potts in 1968’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; his multi-Emmy-winning ’60s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show and his 1993-2001 drama series Diagnosis Murder, in which he played a crime-solving doc.

Before starring as Birdie’s agent-songwriter Albert Peterson—a part that will be played by John Stamos in the upcoming Roundabout Theatre Company revival (previewing September 10 at Henry Miller’s Theatre)—Van Dyke made his Broadway debut alongside The Wizard of Oz’s Cowardly Lion himself, Bert Lahr, in the short-lived 1959 revue The Girls Against the Boys. In 1980, Van Dyke headlined a three-week run The Music Man, directed by Michael Kidd, at City Center.