Dick Van Dyke Earns Historic Daytime Emmy Nomination at Age 98

2020 Kennedy Center honoree, actor Dick Van Dyke attends the 43nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors at The Kennedy Center on Friday, May 21, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
2020 Kennedy Center honoree, actor Dick Van Dyke attends the 43nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors at The Kennedy Center on Friday, May 21, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
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Dick Van Dyke Earns Historic Daytime Emmy Nomination at Age 98

2020 Kennedy Center honoree, actor Dick Van Dyke attends the 43nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors at The Kennedy Center on Friday, May 21, 2021, in Washington. (AP)
2020 Kennedy Center honoree, actor Dick Van Dyke attends the 43nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors at The Kennedy Center on Friday, May 21, 2021, in Washington. (AP)

Dick Van Dyke is vying for a historic Daytime Emmy at age 98.

The actor was nominated Friday as guest performer in a daytime drama series for his part as amnesiac Timothy Robicheaux on Peacock’s “Days of Our Lives.”

Van Dyke is the oldest Daytime Emmy nominee. Producer Norman Lear was 100 when he received his final Primetime Emmy nomination in 2022 and died the next year.

Among those Van Dyke is up against is Australian actor Guy Pearce of Amazon Freevee’s “Neighbours.”

Van Dyke has won four Primetime Emmys, including three in the 1960s for his classic comedy series “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Actor-singer Selena Gomez is nominated in the culinary series category for her Food Network special “Selena + Chef: Home for the Holidays.” Also nominated in that category is Food Network’s “Valerie’s Home Cooking,” the show hosted by actor Valerie Bertinelli that ended last year.

The lead actress nominees are: Tamara Braun of “Days of Our Lives,” Finola Hughes and Cynthia Watros of “General Hospital,” Katherine Kelly Lang and Annika Noelle of “The Bold and the Beautiful” and Michelle Stafford of “The Young and the Restless.”

The lead actor nominees are: Eric Braeden of “The Young and the Restless,” Scott Clifton, Thorsten Kaye and John McCook of “The Bold and the Beautiful” and Eric Martsolf of “Days of Our Lives.”

The Daytime Emmys will be presented June 7 in Los Angeles and air live on CBS. The show is returning to its usual schedule after being postponed until last December because of strikes by Hollywood actors and writers. The hosts and Lifetime Achievement honorees will be announced later.



UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
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UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)

John Mayall, the British blues pioneer whose 1960s music collective the Bluesbreakers helped usher in a fertile period of rock and brought guitarists like Eric Clapton to prominence, has died at 90, his family said Tuesday.

Mayall, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who was dubbed "the godfather of British blues," and whose open-door arrangement saw some of the greats in the genre hone their craft with him and his band, "passed away peacefully in his California home" on Monday, according to a statement posted on his Facebook page.

It did not state a cause of death.

"Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world's greatest road warriors," it said. "John Mayall gave us 90 years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire and entertain."

Mayall's influence on 1960s rock and beyond is enormous. Members of the Bluesbreakers eventually went on to join or form groups including Cream, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and many more.

At age 30, Mayall moved to London from northern England in 1963. Sensing revolution in the air, he gave up his profession as a graphic designer to embrace a career in blues, the musical style born in Black America.

He teamed up with a series of young guitarists including Clapton, Peter Green, later of Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor who helped form the Rolling Stones.

In the Bluesbreakers' debut album in 1966, "Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton," John Mayall enthralled music aficionados with a melding of soulful rock and gutsy, guitar-driven American blues featuring covers of tunes by Robert Johnson, Otis Rush and Ray Charles.

The blues music he was playing in British venues was "a novelty for white England," he told AFP in 1997.

That album was a hit, catapulting Clapton to stardom and bringing a wave of popularity to a more raw and personal blues music.

Mayall moved to California in 1968 and toured America extensively in 1972.

He recorded a number of landmark albums in the 1960s including "Crusade," "A Hard Road," and "Blues From Laurel Canyon." Dozens more followed in the 1970s and up to his latest, "The Sun Is Shining Down," in 2022.

Mayall was awarded an OBE, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in 2005.