Dick Van Dyke's Wife Arlene Silver Jokes She's His 'Security Blanket' as She Hasn't Left Him Alone for 7 Years

When Dick Van Dyke and his wife Arlene Silver decided to tie the knot in 2012 and go through life side by side, they meant it literally.

Silver, 53, gave an update about how her and Van Dyke, 99, have been faring in Malibu amid the Los Angeles wildfires, sharing that she’s been with the Emmy-winning actor nonstop.

“Keeping Dick warm and entertained has been the two things that have been my top priority, so, you know, we don’t have power, we don’t … or, you know, or regular electricity, so we don’t have WiFi,” Silver said on Instagram Live Jan. 12, explaining that she and Van Dyke have been using her camper to charge devices and cook. “...I got Wicked the other day, but I can’t throw it up on the TV and he wouldn’t be able to see it or hear it on a little iPad, so we still haven’t watched Wicked.”

Related: Dick Van Dyke's Life in Photos

Instead, Silver said they hooked up a DVD player to watch the Christmas classic, Elf. “He’d never seen Elf and I’d always told him it was so cute, and Will Ferrell was so perfect in that movie,” she continued. “And he really liked it.”

Silver said Van Dyke also wondered, “Why didn’t they ask me to be in that?" and “loved” Zooey Deschanel, who gave him his Daytime Emmy last year, in the film.

Continuing her video, Silver noted that Van Dyke has grown concerned about his inability to get to the gym amid the wildfires. "Keeping up with his fitness is the other thing,” she explained. “He told me this morning, ‘I feel like a lizard just laying here.’”

At one point during the Live, which Silver broadcast from her car, Van Dyke came out to look for her.

“If I’m away from him too long, he looks for me no matter what,” she said, as the Mary Poppins star came out to tell his wife, “I had a movie playing and it went off.”

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When Silver continued the Live, she told viewers, “I haven’t left Dick alone for probably seven years, and I’m happy about it. So … I’m his security blanket.”

While Silver and Van Dyke have been without power in Malibu since Wednesday, Jan. 8, she said they never evacuated and have been using a gas generator. Their guest house did catch fire, but Silver said it sustained minimal damage.

Despite the setbacks, she and Van Dyke didn’t want to relocate because “Dick is more comfortable here than anywhere else. It’s easier to take care of him here,” she said. Silver also called him a “trooper” for the way he’s carried himself through the fires.

“I don’t know of any other person of, you know, senior citizen age that would put up with this,” she said.

Related: Dick Van Dyke Details 'Exhausting' Escape from Malibu Wildfires: ‘I Was Trying to Crawl to the Car’

Through it all, Silver believes she and Van Dyke have been a united front.

“We’re such a team, my God,” she said of her husband. “I can’t believe what we’ve been through. Two, three fires, COVID, just like, life stuff.”

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She also praised her husband's acting — and made a plea for Van Dyke to win an Oscar to become an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner. "He needs an Oscar to complete everything," Silver said. "He has every other award. Can you believe he didn't get nominated for Mary Poppins?"

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