Dick Van Dyke Present actor Larry Mathews says he and the remainder of the long-lasting sitcom’s forged realized of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination whereas rehearsing an episode.
Mathews performed Ritchie Petrie, the son of Rob (Dick Van Dyke) and Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore), within the sequence. He would have been simply 8 years previous on Nov. 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot and killed whereas touring in a presidential motorcade in Dallas.
In a current interview with Remind, the previous baby star recalled that the present’s forged was rehearsing a season 3 episode centered on his character’s eighth party on the day of Kennedy’s assassination.
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“I bear in mind it vividly, truthfully, prefer it was yesterday,” Mathews, now 69, stated. “[Series creator Carl Reiner] got here in and stated, ‘Everyone cease. Simply cease all the pieces.’ And we had been all like, ‘What?’ And he goes, ‘The president’s simply been assassinated.’ ”
Mathews described the silence that adopted as “deafening.”
“Mainly, everyone gathered within the Petrie lounge, and Carl turned on a prop radio, which we simply had at the back of the set,” Mathews recalled. “We principally listened to Walter Cronkite’s newscast on the assassination. After which Carl informed everyone to go dwelling. ‘We’re carried out. We’re going to close down. We’ll choose it up subsequent week. Everyone must go.’ And that’s what we did, and we picked it up the subsequent week.”
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In keeping with Remind, the episode the forged had been rehearsing, “Blissful Birthday and Too Many Extra,” was the present’s first to movie following Kennedy’s loss of life, and one in all solely a handful that had been filmed throughout its five-season run on CBS and not using a studio viewers, coming so quickly after the nationwide tragedy. Whereas the Dick Van Dyke Present’s third season had already premiered in September 1963, the episode didn’t air till the next February.
