Dick Van Dyke, 99, addresses 45-year age gap with wife Arlene, 53, that 'everyone said wouldn't work'
From Mary Poppins and The Music Man to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Night at the Museum, Dick Van Dyke is an absolute legend of the stage and screen.
Now 99-years-old, he started off as a radio DJ in the late 1940s before making his name in comedy and debuting on Broadway in 1959.
And for the past 13 years of his incredible life, Van Dyke has been married to Arlene Silver.
They first met at the SAG Awards back in 2006 when she was working as a makeup artist. The Disney legend then went on to hire her for other projects before tying the knot in February 2012.
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In a recent interview, Van Dyke addressed their 45-year age gap as they’ve continued to prove people wrong.
“Everybody said it wouldn’t work,” he told PEOPLE as his 53-year-old wife added: “Yeah. I mean it's like eerie how well it works. People the same age don't last.”
With his marriage of 13 years running smoothly, the Dick Van Dyke Show star credited it to the pair getting ‘along so well’.
“We just care about each other so much,” Silver added.
The icon also opened up more about the time they first met as he admitted he’d ‘never’ gone up and said hi to ‘a strange girl’ in his life before.
“I was too scared,” Van Dyke confessed. “But I was at a show backstage and she walked by, and for some reason, I just jumped up and said, ‘Hi, I'm Dick.’ There's something about her and got me, and I was right.”
Silver said her husband has made her feel like she ‘can do anything’.
“And you can,” he chimed in as she added: “Very supportive of each other.”
Van Dyke became the oldest person ever to compete on The Masked Singer in 2023 when he appeared as ‘Gnome’ at the of 97.
The episode of season nine was promoted as ‘the most legendary, decorated and beloved unmasking in history’ and when his identity was revealed, the audience and judges gave him a lengthy standing ovation.
He was the first to be eliminated but before he left the stage, he gave an encore with his part of the Mary Poppins song ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’.
Van Dyke also works on project with Silver, as the pair produced Coldplay’s music video for ‘All My Love’, released in December last year, which he also had a starring role in.
Topics: Celebrity, Sex and Relationships
Jess Battison