Dick Van Dyke explains why his ‘Mary Poppins’ accent was “the worst”
Show business legends don’t get much more beloved than Dick Van Dyke. The nonagenarian is still active as an actor and performer, continuing to bring the joy of entertainment to new generations of viewers with every role. For most, though, Van Dyke will always be best remembered for one of his most infamous roles: the “cockney” chimney sweep Burt in Mary Poppins.
Van Dyke’s character is British in everything but his accent. Van Dyke famously had a difficult time mastering the accent, and even though the film has become a classic of cinema, Van Dyke’s vocal work has become notorious in a different way. Van Dyke has attempted to explain what happened over the years, and when he sat down with Conan O’Brien in 2012, he blamed his vocal coach for butchering his chances at a good accent.
“If someone from the UK sees me, they’re on me like a pack of wolves,” Van Dyke joked. “I mean, it was the worst cockney accent ever done, but the guy who taught me was an Irishman! I made up a story. I said, ‘It wasn’t cockney: it’s from a little obscure county in the north of England. A few cockneys moved up there in the 1800s. You probably never hear it again'”.
Van Dyke admitted he was lying to cover up his maligned attempt at the specific London dialect. The actor has had to spend the rest of his life trying to live down the attempt at cockney, but he’s always approached it with good humour. Even better, Van Dyke has some competition when it comes to bad movie accents.
“Somebody sent me a British magazine listing the 20 worst dialects ever done in movies,” Van Dyke recalled to The Los Angeles Times in 2010. “I was No. 2, with the worst Cockney accent ever done. No. 1 was Sean Connery, because he uses his Scottish brogue no matter what he’s playing.” It’s true: whether it’s as a Russian submarine captain in The Hunt For Red October or an Irish-American police officer hunting down Al Capone in The Untouchables, Connery can’t seem to shake his native accent. At least Van Dyke gave it a shot.
Watch Dick Van Dyke try to explain how he ended up with his cockney accent and his attempt at covering it up with a fib on Conan down below
