Dick Van Dyke Opens Up About Health Struggles Weeks Before 100th Birthday

Hollywood legend Dick Van Dyke is opening up about how aging has affected him physically and emotionally as he approaches his 100th birthday. In a new health update, the "Mary Poppins" and "Dick Van Dyke Show" star reflected on the realities of growing older, the physical challenges he now faces, and the mindset that has helped him stay joyful despite increasing limitations. The beloved entertainer, who has remained active well into his 90s, shared a deeply personal look at how his life has changed and what continues to keep him young at heart.

Van Dyke reflected candidly on the challenges he faces now, explaining that aging has brought new limitations into his once boundlessly active life. “It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” he wrote in an essay for the Sunday Times.

The actor also revealed that he recently had to turn down work opportunities in Chicago and New York because long-distance travel has simply become too overwhelming. “Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house,” he said, noting how his world has naturally shrunk with age.

Known for decades for playing humorous older characters, Van Dyke acknowledged the irony that he now embodies some of those physical characteristics himself. “Like my old characters, I am now a stooper, a shuffler and a teeterer. I have feet problems and I go supine as often as is politely possible,” he wrote.

Van Dyke didn’t shy away from describing the day-to-day realities that come with being nearly 100. “My sight is so bad now that origami is out of the question,” he admitted. “I have trouble following group conversations and complain frequently about my hearing aids, though I would never refer to them as ear trumpets. I’m not that old.”

He added that he spills food on himself more often than he’d like, which occasionally sparks playful tension at home. “When my wife, Arlene, asks me to put on an unstained shirt before we go out, I get impatient,” he wrote. “‘It’s got blueberry all over it,’ she’ll say. ‘Polka dots are in again!’ I’ll reply.”

Despite the physical decline, Van Dyke emphasized that his internal world is still vibrant. “But the superficial stuff, the physical decay, is about the only thing I share with the old guys I played way back when,” he said. “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”

Van Dyke credited his longevity to a lifetime mindset of embracing joy rather than surrendering to hardship. “I’ve made it to 99 in no small part because I have stubbornly refused to give into the bad stuff in life: failures and defeats, personal losses, loneliness and bitterness, the physical and emotional pains of aging,” he said.

“That stuff is real but I have not let it define me,” he continued. “Instead, for the vast majority of my years, I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living. Being alive has been doing life, not like a job but rather like a giant playground.”

He said that a “joyful and fulfilling” life comes down to three things: “Romance, doing what I love, and a whole lot of laughing.”

Earlier this year, Van Dyke opened up about one of the more difficult realities of reaching such an extraordinary age during a heartfelt Q&A at the Dick & Arlene Van Dyke Present Vandy Camp event. The actor revealed that he and his longtime friend Ed Asner once hoped to remake "The Odd Couple" together before Asner’s death in 2021.

“That would've been such fun, and we lost it. I've lost a lot of friends,” Van Dyke shared, according to PEOPLE. His wife, Arlene, gently added perspective of her own, sharing, “He's outlived everybody. That's the curse of living to almost 100.”

Despite the profound losses that come with longevity, Van Dyke’s outlook remains strikingly positive.

Despite his age and health struggles, Van Dyke continues to perform whenever he can. He sings with his a cappella group, the Vantastix, whose other members are decades younger. “When we sing, my heart just soars,” he said. “Because I’m still doing what I love.”

As his 100th birthday approaches, Van Dyke is showing everyone that even as the body slows, a joyful spirit can remain ageless.