Dick Van Dyke "never planned" to become an actor

He told New York Magazine as part of their 'Legends of Broadway' issue: "My whole life was unplanned. Just the next opportunity that came along - one great thing after another. I never planned anything. One job led into another one, and I just kept working and enjoying it. I'm a ham. I don't know, something happens and I come alive and I want to perform. I would have starved in any other business. Being on the stage - there's nothing like it in the world for anyone who can experience it. I pity the people who can't get on the stage. Good God, it was fun!"

The former 'Diagnosis Murder' actor recalled not being able to dance in one of his first auditions for the classic musical but got the job anyway and director Gower Champion was determined teach him.

He said: "I'd always been limber and loose, but I'd never danced before. When I auditioned for Gower Champion, I did 'Once in Love With Amy,' the Ray Bolger song, and I did a little soft-shoe, which is all I knew. And he came up and said, 'You have the part.' I said, 'Sir, I don't dance.' He said, 'I'll show you.' And he did. I couldn't stand there and do pirouettes for an hour, but I could certainly get levitation and cross the stage fast. It was like learning to fly. My God, yay. I was all over that stage. Couldn't stop.

"In Philadelphia for the tryouts, I was not a big hit. The show got rave reviews, and at the end, they'd say, 'Dick Van Dyke is adequate.' And I thought, I've got to go to work, on the dance particularly.

"[My co-star] Chita Rivera was such a help - she knew more about the stage than anybody, and she taught me so much. Chita had physical prowess like I never saw. I think she could leap higher than Nijinsky - my God, she was a strong girl on top of everything else."