Book Excerpt: Dick Van Dyke on How Magic Led Him to Comedy

At first, I just experimented on my own — hiding things in my sleeve, building a secret panel inside an old top hat — but I didn’t get far without an instruction book. Luckily, my mother picked up on my new interest, and for Christmas that year, I got a whole magic set. I practiced all the tricks for hours in front of the mirror. Pretty soon, I got really good at palming things — coins, handkerchiefs, cards. There was a bowl-and-water trick I loved too.

For many Christmases after that, I got a new magic set with a fresh set of tricks to master. This was the Depression, so the magic kit was the only present I got. Which was fine by me.

When I was around 12, I took my act public, setting up my little table of tricks at the ladies lunches held at our local Kiwanis club. I pulled in $3 a show! Being mothers themselves, the ladies were an adoring and forgiving audience; they dutifully gasped and tittered as coins vanished behind my handkerchief and reappeared behind their ears.

As a child and through high school, Van Dyke performed magic for larger and larger audiences. He attributes what he learned during those shows to his later success.

Leland Foster

But looking back, it felt like maybe there was another layer to their delight with me. They seemed surprised that a 12-year-old boy could be so warm and well-spoken. I was connecting with them not as mothers but as people, maybe even peers. As a performer, I realized I was learning the power of charm.

After that, I discovered another key element of the magician’s persona: “cool.” Oddly enough, there was a club of hobbyist magicians in Danville, Illinois, adult men — local store owners and businessmen — and they got wind of my talent (from their wives, I guess) and invited me to join them. I was all of 13 at the time, the only kid in the club, and right away they made me their project. Their technical tips were amazing (many, beyond my abilities), and they showed me how to keep my pre-trick patter feeling fresh.

But most important were their lessons in demeanor. As successfully as I had charmed the Kiwanis ladies, the men spotted in my act tiny hints of struggle — a card fumble here, a stammer there — that would, if unchecked, accumulate into a fatal failure of audience trust. Meaning, they wouldn’t “buy” my illusions. If I couldn’t stop myself from sweating, my Magic Elders declared, I needed to get better at hiding it.

So it was then that I began to cultivate an air of composure. At home and at magic club practices, I worked to make every little wrist movement graceful, every word assured, until the Elders were finally impressed.

Not long after this suave persona was born, though, it was thoroughly dismantled.

At around 15, I landed my biggest venue yet for performing my magic: the high school assembly, an audience of 1,400 students. At Danville High, assembly was a showcase for the performing arts, whether it was a traveling orchestra or a drama club skit. It was a cherished part of our school culture, and everyone took their performances very seriously.

For my act, I decided on an illusion I’d recently mastered and felt sure would wow: the Egg Bag Trick, which involved making an egg disappear in a “magic bag.” At home, I hollowed out two raw eggs by poking holes in either end, then blowing out the yolks. I practiced the trick and my patter, turned on the charm and kept my cool.

As I strode onstage — my smile easy and assured — I was pretty sure I was making the right first impression. I set the bag and two eggs on a table, then launched into my intro, feeling each syllable as I hit it.

Then, in my peripheral vision, I detected some unexpected movement. But I knew that faltering equaled death, so I kept my gaze ahead and continued talking. Then my brain processed what I’d just glimpsed — my two eggs slowly rolling across the table — and even then, I didn’t break composure.

Only when I heard a nervous titter from the audience, followed by a pair of sad little crunches on the stage floor, did I give in to the reality of failure. I followed my audience’s eyes over to my eggs, cracked, misshapen and saggy. I felt total shame.

With that, the giggles turned into guffaws and hoots, roaring through the auditorium. I turned back to face the crowd, and in that split second—though I didn’t consciously know it at the time — I made a pretty big discovery about myself.

Yes, cool and charming can be a winning bit. But maybe it’s only the setup! When that carefully constructed persona cracks and falls apart, it’s funny as hell … and maybe that’s what my “magic act” really is.

On instinct, I let this new persona spread its wings. Others might have skulked into the wings, humiliated. Instead, I took a deep bow, then walked triumphantly off the stage, as if nothing had gone wrong at all.

The crowd went wild. This time, I really had them.

All these years later, now that I see my bridge from magic to comedy, it’s as bright as the Vegas Strip. In trying at magic, I found my tools and ingredients as a performer. In failing at magic, I landed the role of a lifetime. I mean, what is Rob Petrie’s ottoman trip, if not the perfection of the high school egg fail?

Adapted from 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life by Dick Van Dyke, copyright © 2025 by Point Productions Inc. Used by arrangement with Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group. All rights reserved.