Dick Van Dyke found love again with his wife Arlene Silver.
The Mary Poppins star, 98, first met Silver, 52, at the SAG Awards in 2006. Silver, a makeup artist, worked at the awards show where Van Dyke appeared. They hit it off, and he hired her for other projects he was working on. Van Dyke and Silver eventually tied the knot in 2012.
“She’s the best woman,” said the Hollywood icon Malibu Times. “She made me the happiest man in the world. Our life together is so good.”
Silver said Huffington Post, “We care for each other very much. But I am very aware that I have a national treasure in my hands… He is a perfect human being, but he is also a perfect partner.”
In March 2023, Silver took over the care of Van Dyke after a car accident. According to police, the actor suffered “minor injuries” after crashing into a door in Malibu, California. EMS treated Van Dyke at the scene, but he was not taken to the hospital.
Later that year, Van Dyke complimented his wife in a post that photographer Laura Johansen shared on Instagram Stories. As Silver sat on a dressing room chair, Van Dyke said, “You look like a movie star,” before adding, ” I saw it first!”
So who is Dick Van Dyke’s wife? Here’s everything you need to know about Arlene Silver and her relationship with the actor.
She and Van Dyke met at work
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Silver met her future husband at the 2006 SAG Awards, where she was working as a makeup artist. “There was something about her beautiful eyes,” Van Dyke told PEOPLE.
Although he was familiar to her, she did not immediately determine where she knew him from. I knew him, I just didn’t know how I knew him, Silver said. “I love that I knew him as a person before I knew him as a performer.”
She and Van Dyke fell in love after the loss
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Van Dyke’s longtime love Michelle Triola died of lung cancer in 2009, and Silver was by his side during his grief. “Arlene would come over after work and bring me food,” he told PEOPLE. – She was such a support to me that I fell in love. She moved into Van Dyke’s home in Malibu in 2011.
Van Dyke also told PEOPLE that he is a person who likes to be in love. “I have a few friends who have always enjoyed living alone,” he said of his late romance. “But for some reason, that’s just not the life for me. You have to have someone to love.”
She and Van Dyke married in 2012
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Silver and Van Dyke married on February 29, 2012, on a leap day (although they celebrate their anniversary on February 28 each year not leap year). “It was a rush, we just decided that Leap Day would be the best time to do it,” he told PEOPLE.
“It’s a really nice relationship, most people really like it,” Van Dyke’s publicist Bob Palmer told ABC News. “Despite their obvious age difference, Dick has never been happier. She brings a lot of light into his life.”
Van Dyke’s family welcomed Silver
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Although Van Dyke was worried that his family would not accept his relationship with a woman 46 years his junior, they warmly embraced Silver. “My grandkids call her grandma,” Van Dyke said. – My four children simply adore her.
Dick Van Dyke’s Four Children: Everything You Need to Know
She is a singer and dancer
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One of the things that bonded the couple was their mutual love of singing and dancing, which continued throughout their marriage. They perform together in Vantastix, a group formed by Van Dyke many years ago.
“We mostly sing and dance together,” Van Dyke said Malibu Times.
“I learned so many songs with Dick. Countless,” Silver said in the same interview. “He likes to sing all the time, and since we can’t always have a band here or Vantastix, I always want to get him to sing.”
Apparently, it works. “My wife is a good singer and dancer so there’s a lot of singing and dancing here,” Van Dyke told PEOPLE in 2015. “I got up one morning and she was in the kitchen washing dishes and she had her tap shoes on and she was tap dancing while washing dishes!”
She directed the music video
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In addition to performing with Van Dyke, Silver also formed the band Arlene & the Vantastix. In February 2022, she directed the music video for the band’s rendition of “Everybody Loves a Lover”, Doris Day’s 1958 hit, and cast her husband in the lead role.
The cute video features Silver and Van Dyke dancing through an art installation in Los Angeles called “Supershow.” In the clip, the couple cleverly references a famous moment from The Dick Van Dyke Show. In the show’s exit credits, Van Dyke comically topples over an ottoman; at the end of the video, Van Dyke goes around one with a dance move.
Another cute detail from the video: everyone is wearing sweaters from the Dick Van Dyke collection, the sweater line he launched in the 1960s.
They love the red carpet
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Van Dyke and Silver often dress up for marquee events and appear on red carpets together. For the premiere Mary Poppins is back, which featured Van Dyke, Silver accompanied her husband in a maroon dress and a vampy Old Hollywood look. Silver was also with Van Dyke when he received a medallion at the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors, which celebrated his lifetime contributions to American culture.
She inspired his Masked singer performance
In February 2023, Van Dyke appeared in the season 9 premiere Masked singerwhere he sang a cover of “When You’re Smiling” by Frank Sinatra.
After the performance, the entertainer told PEOPLE that Silver helped him choose his number for the show.
“They wanted me to do something current, and I don’t know anything about rock,” Van Dyke said. “So we chose one that is typical for me. She is the one who came up with it, and I liked the song too.”
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