Talk about a Happy New Year: This is the A&E Biography I've been waiting for.

Dick Van Dyke: Put On A Happy Face (Sunday at 8 p.m.) is a jam-packed, two-hour look at one of TV's most talented and beloved entertainers.

In typical Biography fashion, all the career highs and lows are covered. Thirty-five people are interviewed, from Van Dyke himself to co-stars Mary Tyler Moore, Carl Reiner and Rose Marie, to friends such as Anthony Hopkins, Tim Conway and Dick Martin.

They help chart Van Dyke's rise from a small-time nightclub comic to a Broadway star in Bye Bye Birdie. Along the way, he bounced from game shows to kid shows to news magazines and even something called Mother's Day before breaking through on the blueprint for every sophisticated sitcom to follow, The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Besides showcasing a gifted and gracious showman, the Biography special also reveals an intensely private man who hid a drinking problem from family and friends for over 30 years. "Dick only opened up when the two of us started drinking together," says younger brother Jerry Van Dyke (Coach). "And then, boy, did he ever pour it all out."

I contacted Jerry at his winter home in Mexico, where he has retired to concentrate on his latest kick, a string of Jerry Van Dyke Soda Shops. So far, two are up and running. "They're like Planet Hollywood meets Mayberry," he says.

Dick's kid brother is even more candid on the phone than in the special, which is saying something. "I probably know Dick better than anyone in the entire world," he says. "And there are all kinds of things he won't even tell me."

That includes one mystery which arises during the special: Did Van Dyke, who has lived with Michelle Marvin since the late '70s, ever actually divorce first wife Marjorie? "Your guess is as good as mine," says Jerry.

"Dick went hard for that all-American image," he says. "He embraced being a square and told people he really wanted to be a minister. He was the family man with the four kids who shunned the Hollywood scene. So when he came out with the drinking and later separated from his wife, the guilt really ate him up."

"Most comics are introverted," adds Jerry. "I'm an exception. Dick's more like Johnny Carson. They're both very reserved men, very much alike in many ways."

Ironic then that, back in 1961, when it came down to casting the lead in Carl Reiner's autobiographical sitcom about the life of a comedy writer, it came down to Johnny Carson or Dick Van Dyke. (Carson, by the way, did just fine, thank you.)

"Dick always had a lot of talent. But the best thing that ever happened to my brother was latching on to Carl Reiner at his peak," says Jerry.

Van Dyke himself acknowledged his debt to Reiner earlier this week on Larry King Live. Sitting next to a less-at-ease Mary Tyler Moore, the 74-year-old actor, in his seventh season on CBS's whodunit Diagnosis Murder, was relaxed, warm and witty, even breaking into song at the urging of hambone King.

Asked point blank (does King do it any other way?) if he was a loner, Van Dyke said he liked to think of himself as "quiet."

Jerry has a different take on his brother. "That's why he drank. He didn't want to be a loner."

At the time Van Dyke came out with his drinking problem in the mid-'70s his TV and film career had stalled. Anytime he tried to break away from his squeaky clean image, cemented by such wholesome films such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins, he flopped. People didn't want to see the dark side of Rob Petrie. Even a short stint on The Carol Burnett Show tanked.

That's why true fans can't begrudge Van Dyke's success on Diagnosis Murder, even though, as brother Jerry points out, it's not the most challenging series in the world. "For a guy as funny as my brother, to see him playing it straight week after week just kills me," he says.

Why doesn't he just retire? "Are you kidding?" says Jerry. "He hasn't any hobbies except messing around with computers. He was the guy who was going to retire when he was 45. Now he's gonna break the record."

So what. Hang in there, Rob, I mean Dick.


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