![\"Dick](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1000.jpg\")
\u2018Shoiken, not stoirred\u2019 \u2026 Dick Van Dyke in 2013. Photograph: Matt Sayles\/Invision\/AP <\/p>\n \u2018Shoiken, not stoirred\u2019 \u2026 Dick Van Dyke in 2013. Photograph: Matt Sayles\/Invision\/AP <\/p>\n
For more than six decades, the actor Dick Van Dyke has been pilloried for his attempts at a British accent in Mary Poppins (1964). Now, the actor who has since apologised for the \u201cmost atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema\u201d as chimney sweep Bert in the Disney classic has revealed he was in the running to play another UK icon on screen: James Bond.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Today TV programme in the US<\/a>, Van Dyke, who turns 100 next month, said that Bond producer Albert Broccoli approached him to ask if he fancied the role of the British spy in his first big screen outing.<\/p>\n \u201cWould you like to be Bond?\u201d Van Dyke recalls Broccoli saying, to which he replied: \u201cHave you heard my British accent?\u201d As this conversation would have taken place in the early 60s, before Sean Connery was cast in 1962\u2019s Dr No, it suggests Van Dyke was conscious of his own failings when it came to accents long before production began on Mary Poppins.<\/p>\n In press since, Van Dyke has credited his notoriously inaccurate attempt in that film to an Irish dialect coach, while also suggesting that cast and crew, including the London-born Julie Andrews, should have flagged with him any shortcomings.<\/p>\n Van Dyke continued by saying that he is still actively seeking acting work, saying: \u201cI don\u2019t want to [retire], I mean, it\u2019s my life. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n The star, who won three Emmys for The Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as a Tony award for Bye Bye Birdie, is promoting a new book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist\u2019s Guide to a Happy Life.<\/p>\n The star is a famously garrulous chatshow guest. In 2010, then 84, he recalled how he was rescued from drowning by porpoises<\/a> who pushed his surfboard back to shore after he nodded off on the waves.<\/p>\n