Who Is Dick Van Dyke's Wife? All About Arlene Silver

Mar. 15, 2025

Dick Van Dyke and his wife Arlene Silver in 2021.Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty

Dick Van Dykefound love again with his wife, Arlene Silver.

TheMary Poppinsstar, 98, first met Silver, 53, at theSAG Awardsin 2006. Silver, a makeup artist, was working at the awards show where Van Dyke was appearing. They hit it off, and he hired her for other projects he was working on. Van Dyke and Silver eventually wed in 2012.

“She is the best wife,” the Hollywood icon told theMalibu Times. “She’s made me the happiest man in the world. Our life is so good together.”

Silver toldHuffington Post,“We take very good care of each other. But, I’m very aware that I havea national treasureon my hands … He’s the perfect human being but he’s also the perfect partner.”

In March 2023, Silver stepped in to care for Van Dyke following acar accident. According to police, the actor suffered “minor injuries” after crashing into a gate in Malibu, Calif. Paramedics treated Van Dyke at the scene but he was not transported to the hospital.

So, who is Dick Van Dyke’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Arlene Silver and her relationship with the actor.

She and Van Dyke met on the job

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Silvermet her future husbandat theSAG Awardsin 2006, where she was working as a makeup artist. “There was something about her beautiful eyes,” Van Dyke told PEOPLE.

Although she found him familiar, she didn’t immediately place where she knew him from. “I knew him, I just didn’t know how I knew him,” Silver said. “I like that I knew him as a man before I knew him as a performer.”

In 2023, Silver and Van Dyke appeared together on the soap operaDays of Our Lives. “I played an old guy, of course, in a wheelchair. My wife played my attendant,” the actor toldDeadline.

She and Van Dyke fell in love after loss

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Van Dyke has also told PEOPLE that he’s the kind of person who loves to be in love. “I have a few friends who have always enjoyed living alone,” he said of his late-in-life romance. “But for some reason, that just isn’t the life for me.You gotta have somebody to love.”

She and Van Dyke wed in 2012

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Silver and Van Dykegot marriedon Feb. 29, 2012, on a leap day (though they celebrate their anniversary on Feb. 28 every year that’snota leap year). “It was on the spur of the moment, we just decided Leap Daywould be the best time to do it,” he told PEOPLE.

“It’s a really nice relationship, most people like her a lot,” 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 her

Though Van Dyke was concerned that his family wouldn’t accept his relationship with a woman 46 years younger than him, theyembraced Silver warmly. “My grandkids call her Grandma,” Van Dyke said. “My four kids just love her.”

She’s a singer and dancer

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One of the things that bonded the couple is their mutual love ofsinging and dancing, which has lasted throughout their marriage. They perform together in the Vantastix, a cappella group Van Dyke formed many years ago.

“Mostly we sing and dance together,” Van Dyke told theMalibu Times.

“I’ve learned so many songs with Dick. Countless,” Silver said in the same interview. “He loves to sing all the time, and since we can’t always have a band here or the Vantastix, I always want to keep him singing.”

By all accounts,it’s working. “My wife is a good singer and dancer so there’s a lot of singing and dancing going on around here,” Van Dyke told PEOPLE in 2015. “I got up the other morning, she was in the kitchen doing the dishes and she had her tap shoes on, and she was tap dancing while she was doing the dishes!”

She directed a music video

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The sweet video features Silver and Van Dyke dancing through an art installation in Los Angeles called “Supershow.” In the clip, the pair make a clever reference to a famous moment fromThe Dick Van Dyke Show. In the show’s opening credits, Van Dyke comically tumbles over an ottoman; at the end of the video, Van Dyke sidesteps one with a dance move.

Another cute detail from the video: everyone is wearing sweaters from the Dick Van Dyke Collection, a line of sweaters he released in the 1960s.

They love a red carpet

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She inspired hisMasked Singerperformance

In February 2023, Van Dykeappeared on the season 9 premiere ofThe Masked Singer, where he sang a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s' “When You’re Smiling.”

“They wanted me to do something current and I know nothing from rock,” Van Dyke said. “So we picked out one which typifies me. She’s the one that came up with it and I liked the song, too.”

She appeared in a Coldplay music video with Van Dyke

Ahead of his 99th birthday in December 2024, Van Dyke filmed an extended directors' cut music video for Coldplay’s single “All My Love." The video included a brief clip of Silver and her husband performing a choreographed dance whileChris Martinsang in the background.

“What is love? It certainly is a feeling of caring about the welfare and the life of the other person as much as you care for yourself,” Van Dyke said during an interview for the special project.

source: people.com