Actor Dick Van Dyke, approaching 99, dances in Coldplay’s latest music video
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Dick Van Dyke dances barefoot in Coldplay’s music video, All My Love.
PHOTO: COLDPLAY/YOUTUBE
LOS ANGELES – American actor Dick Van Dyke, the lithe and witty nonagenarian whose career spans more than seven decades, has added yet another role to his lengthy resume: music video star.
Dancing barefoot in the backyard of his home in Malibu, California, the 98-year-old is the focus of British rock band Coldplay’s latest music video, All My Love.
Van Dyke, who starred in American sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966 and danced his way through the film Mary Poppins in 1964, pulls out some of his signature dance moves while the band’s frontman, Chris Martin, plays an upright piano.
The video, directed by film-makers Spike Jonze and Mary Wigmore, was filmed in October. A director’s cut that lasts more than seven minutes came out on Dec 6, and a shorter version will be released on Dec 13, Van Dyke’s 99th birthday.
Van Dyke, who is introduced with a title card noting that he was born in 1925, gamely pokes fun at his age, including when a voice asks him to close his eyes and think of the people who meant something to him.
He does, and then opens them.
“I’m too old for this – I’ll pass out and go to sleep,” he says, adding, with a mischievous chuckle: “I’ll take a nap.”
Martin, 47, said on American talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Dec 5 that it was his and Jonze’s idea to cast Van Dyke in the video. Martin said that he and Van Dyke are neighbours, and that they had met several years ago.
Chris Martin sings as Coldplay perform on NBC’s Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, on Oct 8.
“This really may be the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” Martin said of the video. “It makes me so grateful. It’s a big deal for me.”
In the video, photographs of Van Dyke’s family and from his long career – including a picture with late American actress Mary Tyler Moore, his co-star on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Mary Poppins memorabilia – flash on the screen. Van Dyke, in a suit and tie but without shoes, shows off some of his old comic moves.
Many scenes show his wife, Arlene Silver, and his family gathered around him. And, at times, he grows thoughtful, meditating on ageing, family and love.
“I’m acutely aware that I, you know, could go any day now, but I don’t know why it doesn’t concern me,” Van Dyke says. “I’m not afraid of it. I have that feeling, totally against anything intellectual, that I’m going to be all right.”
He adds that he had been lucky to be able to “play and act silly” for a living. NYTIMES
