{"id":304781,"date":"2025-11-21T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304781\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:02:10","slug":"screen-legend-dick-van-dyke-names-the-1-iconic-film-role-he-turned-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304781\/","title":{"rendered":"Screen Legend Dick Van Dyke Names The 1 Iconic Film Role He Turned Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Screen legend Dick Van Dyke<\/a> said he was offered a potential career-altering role in one of the world\u2019s most famous movie franchises. <\/p>\n

\u201cCubby Broccoli came to me and said, \u2018Would you like to be Bond?\u2019\u201d he told Al Roker<\/a> of NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d in an interview<\/a> conducted ahead of his 100th birthday next month.<\/p>\n

Van Dyke said Broccoli, who produced many of the James Bond<\/a> films, offered him the role of 007 when Sean Connery left. Connery left the role twice, in 1967 and 1971 (or three times, if you count the non-canonical \u201cNever Say Never Again\u201d in 1983). It\u2019s not clear when Van Dyke was approached, but there was a reason he wasn\u2019t interested. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Have you heard my British accent?\u2019\u201d he said, referring to his famous attempt at a Cockney accent when he portrayed Bert in 1964\u2019s \u201cMary Poppins.\u201d <\/p>\n

He even apologized for it in 2017, when the British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave him a Britannia Award for excellence in television. <\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate this opportunity to apologize to the members of BAFTA for inflicting on them the most atrocious Cockney accent in the history of cinema,\u201d he said, according to The Guardian<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"DickDick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins.” <\/p>\n

Donaldson Collection via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Van Dyke added that at the time, no one told him just how bad it was. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was working with an entire English cast and nobody said a word, not Julie [Andrews], not anybody said I needed to work on it so I thought I was alright,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

In the new interview, Van Dyke said he regretted turning down Bond, but added there was one part he\u2019s wanted that he can still play. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be Scrooge,\u201d he said. \u201cAlways wanted to play Scrooge, and I could do it. It\u2019s just November. I still got time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Van Dyke turns 100 on Dec. 13, and is marking the occasion with a new book: \u201c100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist\u2019s Guide to a Happy Life.\u201d<\/p>\n

See more of his interview with Roker below. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screen legend Dick Van Dyke said he was offered a potential career-altering role in one of the world\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1250,91265,88,37117,206,62175],"class_list":{"0":"post-304781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-al-roker","9":"tag-dick-van-dyke","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-james-bond","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-sean-connery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}