Dick Van Dyke wasn’t feeling supercalifragilisticexpialidocious on Saturday, June 28. The Mary Poppins actor, who’s nearing centenarian status, had to miss a scheduled appearance that day due to illness.
Van Dyke was scheduled to host a Vandy Camp event with his wife at their namesake Arlene & Dick Van Dyke Theater at Malibu High School in Malibu, California, on Saturday. But Arlene showed up solo, acknowledging she was “not the Van Dyke [attendees were] expecting,” per People.
“I have to inform you that Dick is not up to coming to celebrate with us today. I’m sorry,” Arlene added. “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.”
That said, Dick did join Saturday’s festivities via livestream, and Arlene said she was “pretty confident” he could attend the next Vandy Camp in person.
For Vandy Camp, Dick and Arlene present a “whimsical, vintage circus,” as Arlene explains on the Veeps ticketing website. Attendees enjoy live performances, clips and rare footage from Dick’s film and television career, as well as conversation and Q&A with audience members.
And at a Vandy Camp show last month, Dick revealed that he and longtime friend Ed Asner, who died at age 91, wanted to star in a remake of The Odd Couple.
“That would’ve been such fun, and we lost it,” the Dick Van Dyke Show star said of that remake idea. “I’ve lost a lot of friends.”
Arlene explained that “the curse of living to almost 100” is that Dick has “outlived everybody.”
But Dick said he couldn’t complain. “Life’s been good to me,” he said.
And life has been especially good recently. In 2023, Dick competed on The Masked Singer and treated viewers to an encore performance of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” That same year, he acted out a Days of Our Lives arc that earned him a Daytime Emmy Award and appeared in a CBS special that earned him a Creative Arts Emmy. And last year, the Van Dykes produced and starred in Coldplay’s “All My Love” music video, with Dick one again showing off his dance moves.