[4] That same year he worked as an assistant director to James Young on Unprotected (1916), The Lash (1916), and the lost film Oliver Twist, in which he also played the role of Charles Dickens.

[2] That same year he directed five other films: The Range Boss, Open Places, Men of the Desert, Gift O' Gab, and Sadie Goes to Heaven.

According to Tim McCoy in his autobiography, Van Dyke, who directed him in "War Paint" and five others for MGM in the late 1920s, was eventually to become a giant among Hollywood's creative geniuses.

"[10] McCoy went on to say, "he (Van Dyke) evidenced a degree of concern for my well-being on a par with the level of compassion that might have been exhibited by a nineteenth-century Arab slaver herding a batch of the lately damned across the equator."

An extra fired a blank round too close to McCoy's face, knocking him off his horse and causing pain and a wound needing hospitalization.

MGM regarded him as one of the most versatile, equally at home directing costume dramas, westerns, comedies, crime melodramas, and musicals.

He made stars of Nelson Eddy, James Stewart, Myrna Loy, Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Eleanor Powell, Ilona Massey, and Margaret O'Brien.

His rank of major often showed up in his later film credits, and he was influential in encouraging other MGM stars to join the military during the early days of the war, including Clark Gable, James Stewart, and Robert Taylor.

[14][15] By 1933 Van Dyke had a 3 1⁄2 acre estate in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on 334 South Bundy Drive,[16] which he added on to several times to accommodate his collection of artifacts from world travel and allow large groups of friends for entertainment purposes.

[15] The house was razed by the early 1960s and the grounds were converted by 1965 into a cul-de-sac named Rose Marie Lane with eight large sized homes.

In the latter half of 1942, despite being ill with cancer and a bad heart, Van Dyke managed to direct one last film, Journey for Margaret, which premiered in New York City on December 17 that year.

Following the general release of Journey for Margaret to theaters in January 1943, he said his goodbyes to his wife Ruth Elizabeth Mannix, his three children, and to studio boss Louis B. Mayer and then committed suicide on February 5 in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

His cremated remains are interred at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, with those of his mother, Laura Winston Van Dyke in the Great Mausoleum, Columbarium of the Sanctuaries, Niche 10212.

CA 1707 based on a documented direct descent from John Honeyman (1729–1822), aide to General James Wolfe in the French and Indian Wars and later a spy for George Washington during the Revolution.

The author was allowed full access to Van Dyke's files and photographs archived with the studio in Culver City, Calif.[15] January 20, 1937, Van Dyke and Clark Gable had their signature, hand and shoe print impressions cast in greenish cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.