It’s the Mary Poppins effect... Dick van Dyke hasn’t aged in 56 years!
UNLESS you’re a bit of a Mary Poppins anorak, there’s s a good chance you’ll be blissfully unaware that Dick van Dyke had two roles in the e eponymous film.
A world away from cheery y chimney sweep Bert, the star r played cantankerous banker r Mr Dawes Sr, who picked on n poor George Banks, employer r of Julie Andrews’s practically y perfect nanny.
The star – then aged 39 – hid himself under make-up and silver hair for the sneaky cameo and was credited in the 1964 film as Navckid Keyd, an anagram - of his name.
Fifty- six years on, there’s no o hiding from the fact that now he e seems to be taking on the form of f
‘I paid Disney to do the part’
the character, complete with requisite - white beard, in real life. Van n Dyke, now 94, showed off his new look in a beaming snap with Sting, posted on the singer’s Instagram page.
The pair were backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles after a performance of Sting’s musical, The Last Ship.
Van Dyke was back in the make-up chair for a cameo as Mr Dawes Jr, the tyrannical banker’s son, in 2018’s long-awaited sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, which starred Emily Blunt.
He revealed: ‘When they made me up as the old man in [the original movie], I had to go to Walt Disney and ask him for the part, he didn’t give it to me.
‘I said, “I’ll do it for nothing”. Actually, I had to give him $4,000 dollars. I had to pay him to do the part. And I’d do it again.’ The money went to the California Institute of the Arts, the visual and performing arts school founded by Disney in 1961.
‘That’s the first time I ever bought a part. This time, I got paid,’ Van Dyke added.