The Dick Van Dyke Show Cast: Then and Now—You Won’t Believe It!

Only 2 of the 6 stars of The Dick Van Dyke Show are still alive in 2026: Dick Van Dyke, who is 100, and Larry Mathews, 71, the little boy who played Ritchie. Here is what happened to all of them, and to the show: how Carl Reiner wrote the lead for himself and was told he was wrong for it, how Johnny Carson was a finalist for the part, how a soap company's ads saved it after one season, why Mary Tyler Moore once had a TV part that showed only her legs and her hands, how Rose Marie was a radio star at five, Morey Amsterdam's cello and his one episode as George Jetson, Mel Cooley's "Yech!", the rehearsal that stopped on 22 November 1963, and the neighbors, the boss and the brother, from Jerry Paris to Jamie Farr. CHAPTERS 0:00 Only two are left 0:31 How the show started 1:28 Laura: Mary Tyler Moore 3:12 The writers' room: Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam and Richard Deacon 5:42 Neighbors, a boss and a brother 7:49 The ones who passed through 8:49 The last two: Larry Mathews 9:57 Dick Van Dyke at 100 SOURCES: AP · Entertainment Tonight · People · Talk of the Sound · TheWrap · TV Guide · UPI · Wikipedia. Ages are as of October 2026. Every date, age and quote in the video is shown on its source page. FOOTAGE: short clips and stills from The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966, CBS), its 1960 pilot, "Head of the Family", the Emmy broadcasts of 1963, 1964 and 1966, Mary Tyler Moore on The Danny Thomas Show (1965), the cast and crew remembering the show years later, the Television Academy's tribute to Carl Reiner, a 1956 Hotpoint commercial and the Vitaphone short "Baby Rose Marie, The Child Wonder" (1929, public domain), shown without their sound for commentary and review. PHOTOS: Wikimedia Commons, under the file titles below (search any title there). Cropped and framed for video. Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dick Van Dyke (53771810942, 53773147585, 53771811177, 53773147510) Alan Light (CC BY 2.0): Jerry Van Dyke (2077197366); Carl Reiner John Mathew Smith (CC BY-SA 4.0): Larry Matthews; Larry Masseo (Matthews) and wife Jennifer Kingkongphoto from Laurel Maryland, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0): Mary Tyler Moore 2000; Dick Van Dyke in 2000 Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA (CC BY 2.0): Mary Tyler Moore statue (31682625774) Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (CC BY-SA 2.0): Dick Van Dyke (34188073033) (headshot) Greg Gjerdingen from Willmar, USA (CC BY 2.0): Mary Tyler Moore Statue, Downtown Minneapolis (9137590667) Greg Hernandez (CC BY 2.0): Rose Marie John Malmin, Los Angeles Times (CC BY 4.0): Mary Tyler Moore and Alan Alda with Emmy Awards John Mathew Smith from Laurel Maryland, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0): Carl Reiner with Dick Van Dyke Public domain or CC0: 32 more photos. THUMBNAIL: stills from The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966) and CBS publicity photos (public domain); Dick Van Dyke (53771810942) by Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) and Larry Matthews by John Mathew Smith (CC BY-SA 4.0). #DickVanDyke #ThenAndNow #ClassicTV