It’s been 60 years since Disney’s classic musical Mary Poppins hit theaters, and Dick Van Dyke can fondly look back on the memories from filming one of the Oscar-winning classic.
On the Wednesday, June 26 episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s “Awards Chatter” podcast, Van Dyke, 98, reminisced about working with Julie Andrews, who seemed “like she had done a whole lot of movies,” despite it being her first feature film after her early successes onstage on the West End and Broadway.
In Mary Poppins, Van Dyke played chimney sweep Bert (with a quick cameo as bank owner Mr. Dawes Sr.), opposite Andrews’ titular role as a magical nanny.
“She was cool as a cucumber,” Van Dyke said.
”I’m telling you what I had doing the recording. She not only is a soprano, she sang just a hair on top of the note,” he added of recording the movie’s famous soundtrack.
The album produced two singles, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “A Spoonful of Sugar,” as well as other songs the film is known for, like “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”
“[She is] just that little bit sharp, and I sing flat,” Van Dyke said. “I’m actually a bass, but I had to sing.”
He added, “It turned out alright, and she was so patient with me.”
Mary Poppins earned universal acclaim, and was nominated for Best Picture at the 1965 Academy Awards. Though it lost to My Fair Lady, Andrews, 88, won Best Actress and the film won in four other categories, including Best Song (“Chim Chim Cher-ee”).
In 2006, the movie placed No. 6 on the American Film Institute’s greatest movie musicals list.
Van Dyke’s comments came after Andrews lauded working with him during CBS’ two-hour Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic special last December.
“I’d never made a movie before, and I’d given birth to my lovely daughter Emma nearly six weeks earlier, and I quickly realized that I had better pull my socks up and get in shape,” she said. “I found it pretty daunting, I can tell you. Dick could not have been kinder, more genuinely sweet and helpful. I like to think that we did bond instantly.”
Unlike Andrews, Van Dyke was already an established actor when they filmed Mary Poppins. He made his TV debut in 1957 in two episodes of The Phil Silvers Show and broke out in his Tony Award-winning performance in Bye Bye Birdie (1960).
Andrews follows up her Mary Poppins performance with another iconic nanny role, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for playing Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965).
