Personal Video From Dick Van Dyke Thrills Quad-Cities Family
Dick Van Dyke, who turned 95 this month, made a personal video for Scott and Melita Tunnicliff.
Melita Tunnicliff opened an e-mail sent by an old friend Wednesday at work, not exactly sure what its attached video contained.
When she watched a heartfelt, personalized video from the legendary actor Dick Van Dyke, wishing her family a merry Christmas and happy
2021, she could hardly believe it. Tunnicliff screamed with joy at her desk at LeClaire Community Library.
“It was a real surprise,” she said Thursday morning, Christmas Eve. “It was Dick Van Dyke in the present day because of his age. He looked up and said Scott and Melita, and I said, oh my God!”
“I made everybody come over and watch it with me,” she said. “The younger ones didn’t know who it was; a co-worker from Italy didn’t have
Melita Tunnicliff got a surprise video in a Wednesday e-mail.
a clue. I showed them clips of him. I was so excited because I listened to his audiobook of his autobiography, he narrated it. I felt like I knew him. I really admire his attitude toward life. You can see it, he’s a happy person.”
Van Dyke – star of the immortal “Dick Van Dyke Show” from 1961 to 1966, the films “Mary Poppins” (1964), “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968), and a cameo in “Mary Poppins Returns” (2018) – just turned 95 on Dec. 13. In 2012, at the age of 86, Van Dyke married 40-year-old
make-up artist Arlene Silver.
In his brief video on Cameo for the Tunnicliffs, Van Dyke wishes them and their children Anna and Philip the best holiday season. “Let’s
Melita and Scott Tunnicliff.
hope and pray that 2021 gets back to normal,” he says. And with a characteristic mischievous gleam in his eye, the actor says, “This is Dick Van Dyke. Did I mention my name? You probably didn’t even recognize me.”
Scott Tunnicliff, who’s director of Davenport’s Hilltop Campus Village, said Thursday he also couldn’t believe it when he saw the 37-second video.
“A person gets so cynical these days about stuff that comes over the Internet. It might be phony, but it’s not, it was the real thing,” he said. “I got the biggest kick out of Melita’s reaction. Mine was one of sheer delight. It’s kind of hard to delight a person during this year, but that did it.
“He’s got a fan base that makes sense,” Scott said of Van Dyke. “We went back and played ‘Mary Poppins,’ the recent one, and you see how nimble he was. Anything that raises the visibility of somebody like Dick Van Dyke, underscores how valuable life can be, how active you can be, is a good thing.
“It’s one of the most hopeful messages you could receive,” he said of the video. “It was sheer delight. This has not been a bellwether year. It
will be a challenge. This is kind of ending it with a high kick.”
The video was paid for by one of Melita’s oldest friends, whom she’s known since their days at John Deere Middle School in Moline. The
Dick Van Dyke recorded a holiday video, ordered as a gift from an old friend.
friend didn’t want to be identified, but was happy to offer some much-needed light and hope at the end of a dark year.
“Scott and Melita are huge movie fans,” the friend said Thursday, noting she heard about Cameo through her husband. It’s a service where customers can choose from a wide variety of celebrities to make personalized videos, based off text of 250 characters maximum, for a fee.
“There’s models, sports figures…I’m not 20, so well over half the people I’ve never heard of,” Melita’s friend said, noting she got her husband one from Chuck Norris for his birthday.
For Van Dyke, she just gave him the Tunnicliffs’ names and said they’re huge fans and they would treasure a holiday greeting from him. The
Van Dyke made a special cameo in 2018’s “Mary Poppins Returns.”
friend was overjoyed with how it turned out. “Oh my gosh, it’s Dick Van Dyke,” she said. “It’s kind of a goofy Christmas gift, one I thought they would like.”
Melita said it was the second-best gift she’s ever gotten, next to a barbershop quartet Scott sent years ago to sing for her birthday, when she worked at Bettendorf Public Library.
Of the new video, “this makes 2020 just a little better,” Melita said. “It’s been a rough year.”
Of her friend, she said: “It’s just the kind of thing I would expect from her. She’s the most thoughtful person; she never forgets a birthday or holiday, just the most giving person.”
Melita showed the video to her 89-year-old father. “I said, we’re going to cheer you up. He just laughed; it cheered him way up.”
You can see the video HERE.
Dick Van Dyke co-starred in “Mary Poppins” with Julie Andrews.
