NEED TO KNOW
- Dick Van Dyke was supposed to host the Vandy Camp event on June 28 but had to drop out due to illness, according to his wife Arlene Silver
- “When you’re 99 and a half years old, you have good days and bad days … and unfortunately, today is not a good day for him,” Silver said
- The legendary actor’s wife explained, however, that she was “pretty confident” Van Dyke would be able to make their next Vandy Camp event
Dick Van Dyke missed a comedy event this weekend due to illness.
The actor, 99, was supposed to host Vandy Camp alongside his wife Arlene Silver at the Arlene & Dick Van Dyke Theater at Malibu High School on Saturday, June 28, but had to drop out last-minute.
During a speech, as she identified herself as “not the Van Dyke you’re expecting,” Silver, 53, told those in attendance, “I have to inform you that Dick is not up to coming to celebrate with us today. I’m sorry.”
“When you’re 99 and a half years old, you have good days and bad days … and unfortunately, today is not a good day for him, and he’s sick that he can’t be here,” she continued.
Still, Silver explained that she was “pretty confident” Van Dyke would be at the next Vandy Camp event “in person.” (The star instead appeared on a livestream on June 28.)
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Elsewhere during her speech, Silver spoke in-depth about her husband’s love of Vandy Camp, and how the event is more than “just Dick Van Dyke.”
“It is a celebration of your childhood, all of our childhoods, the music that’s in the fabric of all of us, [and] Dick Van Dyke is a big part of that,” she continued.
Then stating that Van Dyke’s fans “are the greatest human beings I’ve ever known,” Silver added, “These Vandy Camp [events] are a wonderful opportunity to have you all in the same room and meet each other.”
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Silver also said that “being around” Van Dyke “just as a human being has made me a better person.”
She went on to praise the movie star and their musical group, The Vantastix, for giving her “so much confidence to be able to stand up here right now,” further explaining, “I would never be able to do this maybe, like, a year ago, but I’ve had so many experiences pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and right now I’m out of my comfort zone.”
“But I have to wear my big girl pants and hold the reins without Dick here as the safety net that he’s always here with me,” Silver added.
The annual Vandy Camp event sees Van Dyke and Silver work alongside their musical group to honor their “passion for comedy, vaudeville and the circus,” according to a press release obtained by PEOPLE.
Silver — a makeup artist — said, per the release, that the event is “more of a feeling really,” adding that it is “a whimsical, vintage circus.”
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The Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang star first met Silver at the SAG Awards in 2006, and they eventually wed in 2012.
During the Vandy Camp event in 2024, Van Dyke told PEOPLE exclusively that he has no plans to slow down in his late 90s.
“I love what I do for a living,” he said, as Silver chimed in, “[But] the minute he says that — the phone rings, and he’s like, ‘I don’t want to go there.’ If they come to our house, he will work all the time.”
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