Age is just a number for Dick Van Dyke. The iconic actor opened up about his marriage to wife Arlene Silver, whom he met at the 2006 SAG Awards, in a new interview.
“I never approached a strange woman in my life,” Van Dyke, 98, told Entertainment Tonight. “She walked by and I jumped up and I said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick.’ I had no idea she was half my age. Beautiful.”
“She had one [business] card left, which I took and hired her,” Van Dyke added of the makeup artist.
She laughed: “I had never seen ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ I never saw anything he was in.”
The pair — who have a 46-year age gap — would be friends for years before ever having a romantic relationship.
Van Dyke was previously married to the late Margie Willett, with whom he had four children. He later had an affair with his agent’s secretary, Michelle Triola, before divorcing Willett in 1984. His 35-year relationship with Triola lasted until her death in 2009. She died of lung cancer at age 76.
Silver would bring him food following Triola’s death. “She was such a support, I fell in love,” Van Dyke told People in 2013.
The Mary Poppins actor and Silver got married in 2012, one year after she moved in with him.
“We were friends for so long that when I told people that I know, they were happy about [our relationship], and I was scared,” Silver told ET. “I mean, the facts, our age difference. But it’s so irrelevant. I think when you see us together, it’s like you don’t think about it.”
“I was fortunate that I didn’t grow up,” Van Dyke said, adding: “We were meant to be.”
“I’ve never met anyone like him,” she added to the outlet. “He’s always happy and just positive. Always singing, and I would never sing in public. He got me to sing. He got me to sing up on a stage and sang in front of 1,500 people for the first time. He’s just the most joyful person. He influences everybody else to be more joyful, playful.”
The couple recently stepped out together to support Van Dyke’s former co-star Carol Burnett at her handprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in June.
Van Dyke, whose special “Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic” recently aired on CBS, also spoke about their age difference to The Guardian in 2016.
“We don’t feel the age gap,” he said at the time. “I’m emotionally immature and Arlene is very wise for her age, so we meet in the middle.”
In a 2022 interview with the Malibu Times, Van Dyke gushed that she’s the “best wife.”
“She’s made me the happiest man in the world. Our life is so good together.”
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