I always wondered why I liked him. at first I thought it was the pratfall he makes over the ottoman, in the opening credits to the dick van dyke show. he looks effortless. then, I read in this book that he was a fan of philosopher Alan Watts, also a favorite of mine. Once someone close to me said in an off hand way, mary tyler moore was his mentor. I disagreed immediately. I didn't say, bullshit. I just disagreed. if anything, mtm's and dvd's relationship was the other way around. she was the younger one , the protégé at comedy. of course, she was a dancer, but she didn't teach him to dance. "The show wasn't a hit right away. We were up against the PERRY COMO SHOW, and my name didn't mean anything. We got canceled at the end of the season. But summer reruns helped, and Sheldon (Leonard) went to Proctor and Gamble and convinced them to stick with it. He said the show was too good to cancel. He was right. We took off in Season 2, and though we only did five seasons, thanks to syndication the show has rarely been off the air. Why has it held up? Carl (Reiner) had a rule: No references to current events, no slang, nothing that would date it. It also had to be real. He would tell the writer, 'I don't care how ridiculous a situation is as long as it could really happen. It has to be believable.' And, of course, above all else, the shows were funny." "THE NEW DICK VAN DYKE SHOW premiered. I reunited with Carl Reiner on this new CBS sitcom, which costarred Hope Lange as my wife. It was a solid show, but it never took off because viewers wouldn't accept me with another woman. One day a lady came up to me in the supermarket, hit me with her purse, and said, "How could you leave that wonderful Laura?' I learned a lesson: thou shall not cheat---even on your TV wife." "With the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War finally ended, and it was many years too late, as far as I was concerned. I was against the war from the very beginning. I thought it was based on paranoia. Just like the Korean conflict, we didn't manage to do anything except lose a lot of lives." 5 Emmys, a Tony, and a Grammy. In 2013 he received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. He LIVES in Malibu, California.

Book felt honest & real from lessons in life, American history report card, consternation on dating younger woman, his brother's puzzlement why she dating Dick, his local supermarket having his credit cards rubber banded, how he freedance on film to his term insurance worthless by x age.

I enjoyed this book and found it inspiring, but it was difficult to read because the print was quite large--not as large as Large Print, but large enough to make me dizzy at first.

This memoir is just as wholesome, fun and charming as Dick himself. You can hear his warm, avuncular voice throughout; for those of us of that era the songs and tv references bring back memories of simpler times with lots of smiles. A quick read with lots of digestible wisdom about aging. Highly recommended!