{"id":146473,"date":"2025-11-22T03:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T03:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/146473\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T03:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T03:56:07","slug":"dick-van-dyke-almost-played-james-bond-heres-why-he-said-no-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/146473\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Van Dyke almost played James Bond \u2014 here\u2019s why he said no \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Dick Van Dyke<\/a> approaches his 100th birthday, the legendary actor has an update about his future: \u201cI\u2019m looking for work right now,\u201d Van Dyke said, half-jokingly. <\/p>\n

He is currently promoting his new book, \u201c100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist\u2019s Guide to a Happy Life,\u201d released Nov. 18. Speaking with the \u201cToday\u201d show\u2019s Al Roker<\/a>, he reflected on the mindset that has carried him through a century of life and nearly eight decades in show business. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve decided people are born with a certain personality and a certain outlook, a certain perspective,\u201d he told \u201cToday.\u201d \u201cI tend to look on the good side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

That optimism, he admits, is helped by the fact that he\u2019s spent his career doing exactly what he loves. \u201cI\u2019m speaking from an advantageous position, I got to do for a living what I would have done for nothing,\u201d he told \u201cToday.\u201d \u201cIf I had been sitting at a desk somewhere in a cubicle, I might not be so happy.\u201d <\/p>\n

As he looks back, Van Dyke shared two career opportunities he turned down, but still thinks about \u2014 one being the offer to play British intelligence spy James Bond following Sean Connery\u2019s departure. <\/p>\n

After years of criticism for his famously shaky British accent as Bert in \u201cMary Poppins\u201d in 1964, (an accent he has since called \u201cthe most atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema\u201c), he couldn\u2019t quite imagine himself as the British spy, per The Guardian<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Would you like to be Bond?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Have you heard my British accent?\u2019\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

Though he believes he could have pulled it off, he noted that such a role would have been a drastic shift from his long-standing, family-friendly persona, and he wasn\u2019t sure audiences would have \u201caccepted it from me,\u201d he told \u201cToday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other missed opportunity still stings \u2014 a chance to make a movie with Cary Grant. <\/p>\n

\u201cI regret that every day of my life. I turned Cary Grant down. I don\u2019t believe it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

As for his next act, as he nears 100, Van Dyke says he would like to play Ebenezer Scrooge. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to play \u2018Scrooge,\u2019\u201d he told \u201cToday\u201d with a laugh. \u201cI could do it. It\u2019s just November. I\u2019ve still got time.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Dick Van Dyke approaches his 100th birthday, the legendary actor has an update about his future: \u201cI\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-146473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}