Barry Van Dyke, second son of sitcom legend Dick Van Dyke, made his acting debut as a child in his father’s eponymous show in 1962. As an adult, he continued acting, first on The New Dick Van Dyke Show, then with roles on shows including Galactic 1980, Airwolf II, and The A-Team before returning to his dad’s side in 1988 in the Van Dyke Show. Today’s audiences are likely to remember him from his longest-running collaboration with his famous father, the 1990s medical mystery show Diagnosis: Murder.
In the hit spinoff of Jake and the Fatman, Barry played Steve Sloan, a homicide detective who solved crimes with the frequent help of his physician father, Dr. Mike Sloan (played by his real dad). The series ran from 1993 to 2001, spawned two 2002 TV movies, and continues to entertain audiences in syndication. As for Barry, he has continued acting and teaming up with his 96-year-old father, while also staying active in his personal life. Read on to find out where Barry Van Dyke is is now at age 71.
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Although baseless rumors of Barry’s death have circulated since 2017, he is in fact trucking along just fine and has racked up several new credits, including a role in the faith-themed Heavenly Deposits and the lead in The Untold Story, a tale of a sixty-something bachelor starting over, which were both released in 2019. He also posts regularly on his Facebook account, sharing thoughts on politics, President Joe Biden, and his love of motorcycling.
Following the success of Diagnosis: Murder, the father-and-son team returned to television for another mystery series, this time with the Hallmark Channel: the Murder 101 TV movies. They focused on Private Detective Mike Bryant (Barry) and criminology professor Dr. Jonathan Maxwell (Dick) who team up to solve cases. From 2006 to 2008, four Murder 101 TV movies were released and rotated on the channel: Murder 101, Murder 101: College Can Be Murder, Murder 101: If Wishes Were Horses, and Murder 101: The Locked Room Mystery.
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Inspired by the success of their short film Reveille, twin directors Adam and Donovan Montierth developed it into a feature length screenplay, Capture the Flag. When Barry Van Dyke viewed the short, he was so impressed he presented the script to his father who said he wanted to play the lead role in the film described as “a poignant comedy that follows two US Korean War Vets who play a game of ‘capture the flag’ to determine who wins the privilege of raising Old Glory in their retirement community courtyard every morning,” according to a press release. Barry decided to produce the film with Eric J. Adams, recruiting a cast including names like Louis Gossett Jr. While the two Van Dykes spoke passionately about their work toward getting the project off the ground for an Indiegogo campaign in 2017, the project did not approach its funding goal and sadly remains listed as being in pre-production on IMDB, while its website, filmforvets.com now redirects to the writer/directors’ site.
Barry has been married to wife Mary Carey since 1974, and the two share four children: Carey, Shane, Wes, and Taryn. Since Diagnosis: Murder, Barry’s family has grown to include grandchildren including Ava, Gracie, Alex, Mia, and Jane from Carey and ex-wife Anne Coolbaugh; Kyla Mae and Conor from Wes and wife Aisling; and grandson Kayden from Shane and wife Julie Schreiner. He also appears to be a step-great-grandfather to Carey’s current wife Stephanie Rhodes Van Dyke’s granddaughter, Brielle Kodi.
Diagnosis: Murder fans likely noticed a familiar surname circulating through the credits over the years. In addition to cameos by Dick’s late brother Jerry and his daughter Stacey, Barry’s four children also all appeared on the show, with Shane taking on the role of medical student Alex Smith in 14 episodes. Keeping it in the family, each also each appeared in at least one of the Murder 101 films.
While Taryn and Wes now lead lives outside of the entertainment industry (Taryn keeps a low profile, with just a few social posts from her wedding online, while the elder Van Dykes often turn out to support Wes’s work as an artist), Shane and Carey pivoted to writing more than a decade ago and have since collaborated on screenplays for Titanic II (2010), the Hulu original Into the Dark: They Come Knocking (2019), and The Silence (2019). They also wrote the the original spec script that was developed into the 2022 film Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Harry Styles and Florence Pugh.