Dick Van Dyke turns 100! The actor shares his four best secrets to reach a milestone age

Today, December 13, is the official day that Hollywood legend Dick Van Dyke turns 100!

Fans and Van Dyke himself have been counting down to the milestone almost all year, with Van Dyke joking it would be “funny” if he didn’t end up making it to the big day.

But he did, and we’re glad he did, because even at 100, Van Dyke is still entertaining us and dispensing words of wisdom.

Here are his top secrets to staying so youthful at the century mark.

A Positive Mindset

In an essay for The Sunday Times last month, Van Dyke admitted he feels some physical limitations at his age, but added, “Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”

“I’ve made it to 99 in no small part because I have stubbornly refused to give into the bad stuff in life: failures and defeats, personal losses, loneliness and bitterness, the physical and emotional pains of ageing,” he continued. “That stuff is real but I have not let it define me. Instead, for the vast majority of my years, I have been in what I can only describe as a full-on bear hug with the experience of living.”

Marrying Well

Van Dyke has often credited his wife, Arlene Silver, with keeping him young, which makes some sense because she is over 40 years younger than him. The couple first met in 2006 at the SAG Awards and later married in 2012.

"Without question, our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch. Arlene is half my age, and she makes me feel somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters my age — which is still saying a lot. Every day she finds a new way to keep me up and moving, bright and hopeful and needed,” he wrote in his Sunday Times essay.

He also told Yahoo Entertainment in 2023, “My positive attitude, I get that from my wife."

Clean Living

The “Mary Poppins” star has been open about overcoming his addictions to alcohol and smoking, and credits quitting with his longevity.

"I think I was probably in my 50s before it dawned on me that I had an addictive personality,” he said at a Vandy High Tea Event at his Malibu, per People. “If I liked something, I was going to overdo it."

He continued, "So I got rid of booze and cigarettes and all that stuff, which is probably why I'm still here.”

Keep Moving

Van Dyke has been known throughout his career for his incredible dancing and physicality, something he maintains to this day.

According to The New York Times, the now 100-year-old hits the gym three days a week to do circuit training, often dancing from machine to machine. “The doctors can’t believe it when I touch my toes,” he told the outlet.