Arlene Silver, Dick Van Dyke’s wife, brought him back to love.
The Mary Poppins star, 97, first met Silver, 51, in 2006 at the SAG Awards. Silver, a makeup artist, was working on the award show that Van Dyke was attending. They hit it off, and she hired him for other projects she was working on. Their romance blossomed years later.
Despite the 46-year age gap between the two, they have kept a sense of humour, with Silver joking that Van Dyke called Oprah his “cute bride.” They are happily married and have an active life together, making red-carpet appearances and performing together. Van Dyke and Silver were spotted in Malibu, California, where they live, in May 2022. When they went to the gym and went to lunch, she wore a shirt that read “Just a Spoonful of Sugar,” a nod to the famous Mary Poppins song.
The award-winning actor, 97, told Yahoo! Last week it revealed that his relationship with his wife, Arlene Silver, 51, has kept him feeling young for years.
The comedy icon, who costarred with Julie Andrews in the 1964 movie musical “Mary Poppins,” married Silver in 2012. In 1948, he married Margie Willett, and she died of cancer aged 81 in 2008.
When asked about her youthful secrets, Van Dyke had a cheeky answer after being a contestant on the reality series “The Masked Singer.”.
“She is the ideal wife,” Van Dyke told the Malibu Times. “She makes me the happiest person in the world, and our life together is so much fun.”
Silver told Huffington Post, “We take good care of each other. But I know I have a national treasure on my hands. He’s the perfect human being but also the perfect partner.”
In February 2023, Van Dyke joined Yahoo! Entertainment and said his secret to staying young is “having a beautiful young wife” half his age to care for. She also credited Silver for her “positive attitude.”
Silver likely cared for Van Dyke following a car accident in March 2023. A gate in Malibu, California, caused “minor injuries” to the actor, according to police. Paramedics did not take him to the hospital but treated Van Dyke at the scene.
So who is Dick Van Dyke’s wife? Here’s everything about Arlene Silver and her relationship with the actor.
“The jeans, I guess, are for one thing. I have a beautiful young wife half my age to care for my work! I get my positive attitude from my wife,” he said.” I still go to the gym and exercise three days a week. And I advise everyone to do that because that’s what people age for — it’s not just a toughening up and exercising their muscles and lungs. Exercise is the answer.”
He and Van Dyke met at work.
Silver met her future husband in 2006 at the SAG Awards, where she was working as a makeup artist. “There was something about his beautiful eyes,” Van Dyk told People.
Although he found her familiar, he needed her from where he was known. “I knew him; I didn’t know how I knew him,” said Silver. “I like that I know him as a man before an actor.”
After the loss, she and Van Dyck fell in love.
Silver was there for Van Dyke during her grief after Michele Triola passed away from lung cancer in 2009. “Arlene would come over after work and bring me food,” she told the crowd. “He was such a support; I just fell in love.” In 2011, he moved into Van Dyke’s Malibu home.
Van Dijk has told People that he is a man who loves to be in love. “I have some friends who always prefer to be alone,” she said of her late-life romances. “But for some reason, it’s not just my life. You’ve got to have someone to love.”
While in “The Masked Singer,” the Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner hid her iconic face and grey hair in a giant, redheaded gnome costume. Balloons and confetti paraded over the live studio audience, and before his introduction, Van Dyke performed Frank Sinatra’s “When You’re Smiling” to a lively second-row band.
Van Dyke’s family welcomed Silver.
Although Van Dyke was concerned that his family would not accept his relationship with a woman 46 years his junior, they warmly embraced Silver. “My grandchildren call her Grandma,” Van Dyke said. “My four children love him.”
She’s a singer and dancer.
Singing and dancing, which lasted throughout the couple’s marriage, was one of the things that bonded them together. They performed together in the Van Dyke Vantastics, a cappella group formed many years ago.
“Mostly, we sing and dance together,” Van Dyk told the Malibu Times. I learned so many songs with Dick. So many,” Silver said in the same interview. “He always loves to sing, and since we can’t always have a band or the Vantastics here, I always want him to sing.”
By all accounts, it’s working. “My wife’s a good singer and dancer, so there’s a lot of singing and dancing,” Van Dyke told People in 2015. He had tap shoes on and tapped dancing while doing the dishes!”
She directed a music video.
Besides performing with Van Dyke, Silver also formed a band called Arlen and the Fantastic. As part of the band’s “Everybody Loves a Lover” music video, she cast her husband in the role of the lead actor.
The adorable video features Silver and Van Dyke dancing through an art installation titled “Supershow” in Los Angeles. An iconic moment from The Dick Van Dyke Show is cleverly referenced in the clip. Van Dyck comically tumbles over an ottoman; At the end of the video, Van Dyke walks past a man with dance moves over the show’s opening credits.
Another cute detail from the video: a line he launched in 1960, everyone is wearing sweaters from the Dick Van Dyke collection.
Van Dyke’s Hollywood career spanned several decades and included starring roles in Broadway’s “Bye Bye Birdie” and the 1960s sitcom classic “The Dick Van Dyke Show” alongside Mary Tyler Moore. In 2021, she received a Kennedy Center Honor, calling the prestigious art award “the capper of my career.”
