Dick Van Dyke, 99, makes rare remark on his and wife Arlene's 46-year age gap

Daily Mail​

21-04-2025

Beloved actor, singer and dancer, Dick Van Dyke, shared some rare insight into his relationship with wife Arlene Silver.
While reflecting on their 13-year marriage, the Hollywood legend, 99, gushed to People that he and his spouse, 53, 'get along so well.'
'Everybody said it wouldn't work,' Van Dyke recalled, before Silver chimed in to say. 'Yeah, I mean it's like eerie how well it works. People the same age don't last.'
She also raved that they 'just care about each other so much' and are 'very supportive of each other.'
'He's made me feel like I can do anything,' she said.
Van Dyke noted that they both 'just love being home' and described Malibu as their 'favorite place.'
'We're so grateful. Our house did get hit by the Franklin fire, but in the scheme of things, we got very lucky,' he said at Dick & Arlene Van Dyke Present Vandy Camp.
On Sunday, the couple hosted the second 'Vandy Camp' to aid fire relief in Malibu.
During the fundraiser, Van Dyke took to the stage in front of a sold out crowd with his wife Arlene and his a cappella band, The Vantastix.
The group sang songs, answered audience questions and shared memories of the 99-year-old's life and career.
Ticket proceeds benefitted the Community Brigade and CA Wildlife relief - as efforts to rebuild continue after the devastating fires in Los Angeles earlier this year.
For the occasion, he sported a 'Spoonful of Sugar' sweater and opened the show singing about senility and joking about how he struggled to remember things.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight last year, Van Dyke recalled his first encounter with Silver.
'I never approached a strange woman in my life,' the legendary Chitty Chitty Bang Bang star said. 'And she walked by and I jumped and I said, "Hi, I'm Dick." I had no idea she was half my age. Beautiful.'
The Dick Van Dyke show actor said he later found out Arlene was a makeup artist.
'She had one [business] card left, which I took and hired her,' he added.
'I had never seen the Dick Van Dyke Show, I never saw anything he was in,' Silver said while speaking about meeting her husband for the first time.
But they didn't start dating right away. They developed a friendship and by the time things turned romantic between them, their big age difference didn't matter to them or to any of Arlene's friends.
'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 admitted.
Meanwhile, Silver previously told The Huffington Post that she remembers seeing Van Dyke for the first time 'at the catering table with his bow tie and his big smile.'
'Right when I sat down, he was sitting next to me. He said, "Hi, I'm Dick." The first thing I asked him was, "Weren't you in Mary Poppins?"'
During his career, that spans more than seven decades, Van Dyke earned five Emmys, a Tony, a Grammy, a BAFTA, the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award, and induction into the Television Hall Of Fame, which was due in large part to his role as Rob Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966), as well as The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-1974) and The Carol Burnett Show (1977).
The actor's most recent project is a role in the upcoming film, Capture The Flag, which is currently in pre-production. Van Dyke and Silver will celebrate 10 years of marriage next February.
He has four children: sons Barry and Christian and daughters Stacy and Carrie that were born during his first marriage to Margie Willett, which lasted from 1948 until their divorce in 1984.
The proud family man now also has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The acting icon will turn 100 in December.